Solar Nerd articles about: Solar Industry

Mission Solar Energy, a solar panel manufacturer based in San Antonio, Texas, shared news last week that it will soon expand its manufacturing capacity. The factory, which is colocated with Mission Solar’s headquarters in south San Antonio, will be adding 300 megawatts of manufacturing capacity immediately. Given that Mission’s highest output solar panel is 375 watts, that works out to about 800,000 panels annually. The factory currently has a capacity of 300 MW, so that means the company is immediately working on doubling the capacity of its 246,000-square-foot factory.

Earlier this year, LG abruptly announced that it was closing its solar panel business, surprising many in the industry. The news was confirmed in a press release on February 23. According to the company, its solar panel manufacturing was no longer viable due to increasing costs: LG leadership decided to exit the global solar panel business following a comprehensive review of the impact of increasing material and logistics costs, as well as severe supply chain constraints affecting the solar industry.

Solar panels keep getting cheaper, but price isn’t the only consideration when it comes to buying solar panels for your home. As a modern technology, the rapid evolution of solar is more similar to your smartphone than to mature energy technologies that solar competes with, such as gas turbines or coal powered steam plants. If you’re a homeowner who is contemplating putting solar panels on your roof or backyard, you might be a little overwhelmed with the technical terminology and all of the choices available.

One of the great things about the green energy revolution is that it has created a rapidly growing job sector. In 2020, more than 230,000 people were employed in the solar industry across the United States. Many of these are solar installation jobs, but also solar is one of the sectors where domestic manufacturing is growing. If you’re thinking of going solar in your home and want to support American manufacturing, you might be wondering which solar panels are made in the USA.

If you’re interested in solar and renewable energy, you’re probably aware that the price of wind and solar technologies have dropped by an incredible amount over time. There are a couple questions that homeowners who are thinking of going solar often have. The first is: Is solar power getting cheaper? And other is: If solar is getting cheaper, should I wait before installing solar panels on my house? Update (June 8, 2022)