{"id":249,"date":"2016-01-04T11:31:47","date_gmt":"2016-01-04T16:31:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/solarenergylocal.com\/news\/?p=249"},"modified":"2016-01-05T06:50:29","modified_gmt":"2016-01-05T11:50:29","slug":"solar-energy-shines-brightly-in-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/solar-energy-shines-brightly-in-2015\/","title":{"rendered":"Solar energy shines brightly in 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Both wind and solar energy show sharp increases in 2015<\/h2>\n<p>The renewable energy sector, as a whole, shone brightly in 2015, as multiple facets of clean energy showed marked increases.<\/p>\n<p>Multiple sources throughout 2015 predicted a big year for renewable energy, and those predictions largely came true.<\/p>\n<div id=\"inlink\"><a href=\"http:\/\/solarenergylocal.com\/news\/report-u-s-solar-market-remains-on-track-for-a-record-breaking-year\/\" title=\"Report: U.S. solar market remains on track for a record-breaking year\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/solar-panels-closeup_df4j52k-150x150.jpg\" title=\"Report: U.S. solar market remains on track for a record-breaking year\" alt=\"Report: U.S. solar market remains on track for a record-breaking year\"><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/solarenergylocal.com\/news\/report-u-s-solar-market-remains-on-track-for-a-record-breaking-year\/\" title=\"Report: U.S. solar market remains on track for a record-breaking year\"><h4>Report: U.S. solar market remains on track for a record-breaking year<\/h4><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/solarenergylocal.com\/news\/report-u-s-solar-market-remains-on-track-for-a-record-breaking-year\/\" title=\"Report: U.S. solar market remains on track for a record-breaking year\" class=\"hide375\">Read more<\/a><\/div>\n<p>A recent report from <a href=\"http:\/\/ecowatch.com\/2015\/12\/23\/solar-wind-soars-2015\/\" title=\"EcoWatch\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>EcoWatch<\/strong><\/a> pointed out some telling statistics from 2015, including the fact that 5 percent of U.S. electricity came from renewable sources like wind and solar last year.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" width=\"550\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Renewable Energy Soars in 2015 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/l7g68biJXV\">https:\/\/t.co\/l7g68biJXV<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NRDC\">@NRDC<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NRDCRenewables\">@NRDCRenewables<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/QC8rYNpEvI\">pic.twitter.com\/QC8rYNpEvI<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; EcoWatch (@EcoWatch) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/EcoWatch\/status\/679674362786660352\">December 23, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Tax credits<\/h2>\n<p>According to EcoWatch, the production tax credit (PTC) for wind power and the solar investment tax credit (ITC) both contributed greatly to the recent success of renewable energy and, with the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.greenbiz.com\/article\/congress-extends-renewable-investment-tax-credit-what-now\" title=\"recent extension of these tax credits\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>recent extension of these tax credits<\/strong><\/a> given by congress, these will be a positive factor in 2016, as well.<\/p>\n<div id=\"inlink\"><a href=\"http:\/\/solarenergylocal.com\/news\/new-solar-system-activated-every-1-6-minutes-in-u-s-in-q3-2015\/\" title=\"New solar system activated every 1.6 minutes in U.S. in Q3 2015\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/solar-panels-rooftop-homes_ka4l9h1-150x150.jpg\" title=\"New solar system activated every 1.6 minutes in U.S. in Q3 2015\" alt=\"New solar system activated every 1.6 minutes in U.S. in Q3 2015\"><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/solarenergylocal.com\/news\/new-solar-system-activated-every-1-6-minutes-in-u-s-in-q3-2015\/\" title=\"New solar system activated every 1.6 minutes in U.S. in Q3 2015\"><h4>New solar system activated every 1.6 minutes in U.S. in Q3 2015<\/h4><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/solarenergylocal.com\/news\/new-solar-system-activated-every-1-6-minutes-in-u-s-in-q3-2015\/\" title=\"New solar system activated every 1.6 minutes in U.S. in Q3 2015\" class=\"hide375\">Read more<\/a><\/div>\n<h2>Solar and wind jobs<\/h2>\n<p>Employment in both the wind and solar industries increased greatly in 2015, as well, EcoWatch noted. Solar jobs are up 80,000 since 2010, and wind energy jobs jumped to 73,000 from 50,500 year over year, when measured this past August.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" width=\"550\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">2015: A Banner Year for <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Solar?src=hash\">#Solar<\/a> Energy by <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RhoneResch\">@RhoneResch<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/gYFe7j26V1\">https:\/\/t.co\/gYFe7j26V1<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SEIA\">@SEIA<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/sierraclub\">@sierraclub<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/greenpeaceusa\">@greenpeaceusa<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/350\">@350<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/EdI5rvXXSO\">pic.twitter.com\/EdI5rvXXSO<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; EcoWatch (@EcoWatch) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/EcoWatch\/status\/679674247665594368\">December 23, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<span class=\"source-attribution\">Source &rarr; <a href=\"http:\/\/ecowatch.com\/2015\/12\/23\/solar-wind-soars-2015\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">EcoWatch<\/a><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The renewable energy sector, as a whole, shone brightly in the United States in 2015, as both solar energy and wind energy showed marked increases throughout the course of the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":252,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3,6],"class_list":["post-249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-solar","tag-solar-energy","tag-solar-power"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":261,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249\/revisions\/261"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}