Solar panel shipments to soar 30 percent in 2014

Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Solar panel shipments to soar 30 percent in 2014
(Image credit: Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

Growth in solar energy increased a lot last year. One third of new power resources brought online in the U.S. last year was from solar.

According to a new report out of the Solar Energy Industries Association and GTM Research, solar power had a record year in 2013, with 4.75 gigawatts of solar energy systems installed, including 2 gigawatts in just the fourth quarter alone.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

[NPD Solarbuzz]

Why? Like computers did twenty years ago, solar energy keeps getting cheaper and more efficient, and is now just as cheap as fossil fuels in countries like Spain and Germany.

Because of this price decrease, even Big Oil sees solar as the dominant source of energy on Earth by 2100.

Explore More

John Aziz is the economics and business correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also an associate editor at Pieria.co.uk. Previously his work has appeared on Business Insider, Zero Hedge, and Noahpinion.