The U.S. boom in solar installations

The U.S. boom in solar installations has disrupted revenue, workflow, and forecasting at large utilities, according to utility consultants, partners and affiliates who gathered this morning in Chicago.Solar power installations grew by 76 percent in 2012, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association, and the U.S.Fashion Dresses is expected to add as much as 5 gigawatts to its 10 GW of solar capacity this year."The solar market is growing year over year at a pretty incredible clip," said Bradley Klein, an attorney with the Environmental Law and Policy Center in Chicago. "At the same time the cost of solar—both panels and installations—is falling rapidly."

Solar power is becoming much more cost effective because of technology improvements, growth in manufacturing capacity, greater experience in the industry, and more competition,Fashion Dresses Klein told about 60 people gathered at the Illinois Institute of Technology for the Great Lakes Symposium on Smart Grid and the New Energy Economy."This represents kind of a game changing scenario from the utilities' perspective," added Jeff Smith of West Monroe Partners, a consulting firm that serves utilities.Utilites are grappling with the following major disruptions, according to the symposium panelists:

Lost revenue: "Large utilites are seeing erosion in their revenues due to a couple of things: distributed generation Fashion Dresses (in which) customers have decided to put in generation at their own locations; and also in deregulated markets, a lot of their revenues are flowing out the door to retail energy suppliers," said Jeremy Jones, the chief technology officer for SoCore, a commercial solar installation company.Utilities have responded largely in two ways, Jones said:Fashion Dresses by beginning to shift from variable electricity rates to fixed rates that will cover their cost for delivering electricity. And by buying up the solar companies that are eating into their revenues. For example, Edison International purchased SoCore this year, and NextEra and George Power have recently purchased solar companies.

Increased Paperwork: "Another factor is the sheer volume of applications for solar that arrive at the front door of both cities and utilities as demand ramps up for these kinds of technologies," said Jeff Smith of West Monroe Partners. When residents install solar panels at home, they typically have to submit applications to the local utility and the local government. Residential systems represent 20 percent of the nation's solar capacity, Smith said, but well over 90 percent of the applications that cities and utilities see.

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