It’s no surprise that last year’s policies focused less on incentives and more on technical and procedural issues to accommodate higher Screen Shot 2013-01-16 at 8.52.43 AMlevels of growth. Total distributed solar installations, not counting big grid-connected projects, have nearly quadrupled in just the past three years, climbing from 1143 MW in 2009 to roughly 4300 MW in 2012.

In the coming era of solar, we can imagine a continued trend in this direction, with more
policies that determine the real-time value to the grid that renewable energy technologies
provide.

According to Laurel Passera, this might be a glimpse of what high-penetration solar looks like.

Read her erudite piece on this impressive trend in the latest edition of IREC’s Connecting to the Grid Newsletter.