A graph Bloomberg New Energy Finance posted illustrates the recent 60%+ growth deployed solar capacity, but BNEF fails to project solar’s compound interest growth forward.
Look at the solar numbers in that graph:
2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 |
---|---|---|---|---|
1.6 | 2.0 | 2.9 | 4.9 | 8.0 |
Change | 25% | 45% | 69% | 63% |
Then look at that last row I added, which is each year’s percentage increase over the previous year, as in 8.0 for 2012 divided by 4.9 for 2011 = 1.63 or 63%. Slightly more for the previous year, and less in years before that. In other words, the annual compound growth rate for solar is around the 65% rate reported by the solar industry.
And slightly higher than the 60.9% FERC rate I used Continue reading