Solar Energy in the United States: Development, Challenges and Future Prospects

The ambitious target of net-zero emission by 2050 has been aggressively driving the renewable energy sector in many countries. Leading the race of renewable energy sources is solar energy, the fastest growing energy source at present. The solar industry has witnessed more growth in the last decade than it has in the past 40 years, owing to its technological advancements, plummeting costs, and lucrative incentives. The United States is one of the largest producers of solar power in the world and has been a pioneer in solar adoption, with major projects across different technologies, mainly photovoltaic, concentrated solar power, and solar heating and cooling, but is expanding towards floating PV, solar combined with storage, and hybrid power plants. Although the…