Invest better with The Motley Fool. Get stock recommendations, portfolio guidance, and more from The Motley Fool's premium services.
The solar industry is going to hit a new record this week, demonstrating the continued exponential growth of installations.
*Average returns of all recommendations since inception. Cost basis and return based on previous market day close.
Alert: Top Cash Back Card Now Offers 0% Intro APR Until Nearly 2027
Enjoy 0% intro APR on purchases and balance transfers for 15 months—plus up to 5% cash back in popular categories.
Motley Fool Returns
Market-beating stocks from our flagship service.
Calculated by average return of all stock recommendations since inception of the Stock Advisor service in February of 2002. Returns as of 2025-08-28 23:35:30.037418.
Discounted offers are only available to new members. Stock Advisor list price is $199 per year.
Calculated by Time-Weighted Return since 2002. Volatility profiles based on trailing-three-year calculations of the standard deviation of service investment returns.
The solar industry is having a much better year than anyone expected in 2017, and as technology improves, the future looks brighter by the day. This week, predicted installation levels hit a huge milestone and efficiency took a big step forward.
Solar-plus-storage also got another high-profile deal in Hawaii, which is becoming the industry's proving ground. If Hawaii is making storage work to increase solar adoption rates, why can't the rest of the world? Here's what investors should know from the week in solar energy.
Image source: SunPower.
As we get closer to the end of 2017, it's becoming clear that the solar industry will likely surpass 100 GW of solar installations for the year. For perspective, that's up from about 76 GW a year ago, and exponential growth from the 8.1 GW installed in 2009.
SolarPower Europe and Bernreuter Research have both recently predicted that we'll pass the 100 GW mark. For manufacturers, this has driven strong volumes but also better-than-expected panel prices and better profits than investors expected at the beginning of the year. Given the economic competitiveness of solar energy, there's no indication that the industry's growth will slow anytime soon.
Solar technology is constantly improving, and the big steps forward in 2017 and 2018 will be driven by mono-PERC silicon technology. This week, JinkoSolar (JKS 0.02%) announced that it has built a mono-PERC solar cell that reached efficiency of 22.78%, which it says is a record.
At the same time, LONGi Solar, which is one of the largest solar manufacturers in the world, says it will make mass-produced solar cells with efficiency over 22% by the end of 2017. Before long, 20% efficient solar panels could be standard for the industry, a huge increase from the 15%-to-16%-efficient panels that drove the industry for most of the last decade.
Hawaii is getting its largest solar-plus-storage project thanks to SunPower (SPWR +0.00%) and AES (AES +0.01%) Distributed Energy. SunPower will provide an Oasis system and E-Series solar panels for a 28 MW solar system, which will be accompanied by a 20 MW, 100 MW-hr energy storage system.
The combination is the largest on the island of Kauai and will bring its percentage of electricity provided by solar to 40%. Kauai has been one of the fastest to adopt solar energy because of its high electricity costs and remote location. If it can generate 100% of its electricity from renewable energy by using storage effectively, it could be a case study in how to design a renewable-energy-based grid.
Here are a few more notable items from the solar industry this week.
That's all for this week in renewable energy. We'll have more on the industry and earnings next week when SunPower reports, so check back to fool.com for details on that announcement.