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Solar power in Michigan has been growing in recent years due to new technological improvements and a variety of regulatory actions and financial incentives, particularly a 30% federal tax credit, available for any size project. Although among the lowest U.S. states for solar irradiance, Michigan mostly lies farther south than Germany where solar power is heavily deployed. Michigan is expected to use 120 TWh per year in 2030. To reach a 100% solar electrical grid would require 2.4% of Michigan's land area to host 108 GW of installed capacity.
Contents
- Solar farms
- Community solar
- Distributed solar
- Solar industry
- Government policy
- Net metering
- Renewable portfolio standard
- Largest systems
- References
According to the Michigan Public Service Commission, the state had an estimated 27 MW of solar capacity as of the end of 2014.
Solar farms
In July 2012, Michigan's largest rooftop array, 977.6 kW, was installed in Canton on the IKEA store. Ford Motor Company and DTE Energy built the largest solar plant in the state, a 1.04 MW solar car port at Ford's world headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan in 2015. In 2015, DTE built a 1.1 MW solar farm at Domino's Farms near Ann Arbor, slightly larger than the Ford carport. The IKEA store announced an expansion of its existing array in 2015 to bring it to 1.2 MW. A 1.95 MW solar farm at DTE's Greenwood Energy Center near St. Clair came online in January 2016. Indiana Michigan Power, in November 2016, opened a 4.6 MW solar farm near Watervliet.
A 1.4 MW solar farm is planned by American Municipal Power at a brownfield site in Coldwater and expected to be online in 2016.
In late 2015, DTE began construction on two solar farms in Lapeer County: a 30 MW farm and a 15 MW solar farm with completion expected in 2016. These would be the first large utility-scale solar farms in the state, with the larger covering 200 acres of land and the smaller one covering 100 acres. In March 2016, DTE got approval for a 2MW solar farm to be built in a closed park in Detroit.
Fort Custer began construction in May 2015 of a 0.25 MW solar farm with plans for a second 0.3 MW farm later. This is part of the U.S. military's renewable energy goals of 25% renewables by 2025. Camp Grayling has a small 0.02 MW installation on one building roof while Selfridge Air National Guard Base had no solar power by 2014.
The Lansing Board of Water and Light is planning a 20 MW project that would almost double the amount of solar power in the state. In September 2015, Michigan State University approved solar car ports that would cover 5 parking lots and have a total of 15 MW(DC) of power, expected to be completed by the end of 2017.
Community solar
In 2015, several community solar projects were proposed. Consumers Power built a 3 MW solar farm at Grand Valley State University, completed April 2016, which became the largest solar farm in Michigan. Consumers Power also built a 1 MW community solar project at Western Michigan University, completed in August 2016. Spartan Solar, a 1.2 MW installation in Cadillac, was built by Wolverine Power Cooperative in fall 2016, the largest solar plant in Northern Michigan. Two 0.3 MW community solar farms are proposed by Lansing BWL, one in East Lansing and one in Lansing. DTE Energy has issued proposals for community solar farms that could reach 50 MW.
Distributed solar
Distributed solar is not widely used in Michigan with 2,289 installations totally 17,000 kW, providing 0.02% of the state's electricity, as of 2015.
Solar industry
Michigan was ranked 14th among U.S. states for solar jobs in 2013.
In 2002, Stanford R. Ovshinsky built a factory in Auburn Hills, Michigan to build low cost Uni-Solar panels using amorphous semiconductors that generate power in diffuse light. Uni-Solar became the second largest manufacturer of thin film solar cells, after First Solar, and a developer of solar shingles before going bankrupt in 2012.
Suniva opened a solar panel factory in Saginaw, Michigan in 2014, capable of producing 200MW of panels per year.
Government policy
The Government of Michigan has taken a variety of actions in order to encourage solar energy use within the state.
Net metering
The state has a net metering program that allows installations of up to 20 kW of on-site electrical generation to continuously roll over any excess generation to the next month. Participation is limited to 0.75% of utilities peak demand the prior year. Peak demand for the state for 2011 was 21,477 MW.
Renewable portfolio standard
The state adopted a Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) in 2008 which required that 10% of Michigan's electricity come from renewable resources by 2015. This standard was met mostly by wind power. A program to add 2 MW of distributed solar by Consumers Energy customers was reached in two weeks, and the state directed the company to offer another 2 MW at a cost not to exceed $20 million.
In December 2016, a new energy policy was adopted which calls for 12.5% renewable power by 2019 and 15% by 2021. It further calls for power suppliers to "obtain at least 35% of the State’s electric needs through energy waste reduction and renewable energy by 2025."
Largest systems
Systems of 0.5 MW and larger