Recently, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy signed legislation that allows for PV projects in the state, where Alaskans can order PV modules from non-home communities, which provides clean energy to more than 260,000 Alaskans living in rental housing and 79,000 people who don't meet the delineated poverty line.
The legislation was signed after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Earth Day proclamation, and as leaders, the Alaska Energy Authority and the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation were awarded $62.5 million in grants to use for municipalities, residential projects, and community-scale rural projects in Alaska, as well as to provide benefits from PV to low-income and disadvantaged communities.
With growing concerns about the Cook Inlet gas crisis, Alaskan utilities are trying to find ways to diversify their energy sources from renewable sources, and establishing community photovoltaics could also provide an opportunity to build a stronger and more resilient grid. This is a critical time in Alaska's energy transition, and until now, most Alaskans have supported the development of PV, but most have not been able to benefit from distributed renewable energy.
Previously, Alaska's PV modules were largely self-produced, and on February 27, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced more than $366 million in funding for 17 projects located in or adjacent to highly polluted, underserved, and disadvantaged communities to accelerate clean energy deployment in rural and remote areas. The projects cover photovoltaic energy storage, hybrid photovoltaic storage microgrids, hydropower, heat pumps, biomass, and more. Many of these 17 communities alone belong to Alaska, but according to reliable data, Alaska has only 546 MW of installed PV in the first quarter of 2024, which is at the bottom of the U.S. state rankings, and the emergence of community PV will change that.
Over the past decade, the number of states with policies in place to support third-party sharing or community PV has expanded from a few to 22, with Washington, D.C. included. To date, 6.6GW of generating capacity has been reached, and Wood Mackenzie's latest U.S. Community Solar Market Outlook predicts that 14GW of power will be installed nationwide by the end of 2028.
Meanwhile, on August 12, U.S. President Joe Biden announced an increase in the tariff quota for imported photovoltaic cells, from 5GW to 12.5GW.
With the ensuing increase in imports of PV cells, there will be more choices of PV modules that Alaska can order. This will also have an impact on the development of the PV industry in Alaska, and shipments from Alaska PV module manufacturers may decline as a result, and PV module prices in Alaska may fluctuate as a result.
Source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/j89YTT0ULtFAYsO2wnwKsg