Analysts at GTM Research expect 2 gigawatts of solar installation to slip from 2016 to 2017, but that still leaves 9-11 GW already queued up for installation in 2016, up from 6 GW in 2014 and perhaps 7.5 in 2015.
Installations will continue to be driven by the falling price of solar electricity, which GTM predicts will routinely drop below 4¢ per kilowatt hour at the utility scale over the next two years—cheaper than gas or coal.
“In short, the ITC extension is a game-changer and accelerates the timeline for the next stage of solar. We’ll hit nearly 100 gigawatts of cumulative solar by the end of the decade — after starting the decade with less than 2 gigawatts,” said MJ Shiao, GTM’s director of Solar Research, in a roundtable discussion following the tax-credit extension.