Despite its job creation record the US solar industry still produces no energy worth speaking of. Before we can get into this question, however, we have some data issues to resolve:

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA, Table 10.1) gives the following US energy consumption data by source for 2015. Note that Mtoe = million tonnes oil equivalent:

• Oil consumption: 884.3 million tonnes
• Natural gas consumption: 708.0 Mtoe
• Oil & Gas consumption combined: 1592.3 Mtoe
• Coal consumption: 390.3 Mtoe
• Total US consumption: 2438.2 Mtoe
• Solar consumption:  ? Mtoe

Why is there a question mark where solar consumption should be? Because other sources give different numbers. Here are some examples for US 2014 solar generation, with details as to how I converted them into Mtoe:

EIA: 420 trillion btu . Crude oil 5.9 million btu/bbl = 71 million bbl = 71/7.33 = 9.7 Mtoe (the number missing from the list above).

EIA: 18.1 TWh (from Wikipedia) Using the BP 4.4 conversion factor = 4.1 Mtoe. (The derivation of the 4.4 factor is not given but BP uses it to convert all generation sources from TWh to Mtoe.)

National Renewable Energy Laboratory ( NREL, same source as above): 32.5 TWh = 7.4 Mtoe using the BP conversion factor.

BP 2015 Statistical Review = 18.5 TWh and 4.2 Mtoe (separately tabulated).

Obviously the problem of accurately measuring US solar generation has not yet been solved.

So which of the four estimates did I use? None of them. I made my own estimate based on installed capacity and average US solar PV capacity factors, which are listed by region in my earlier post on solar load factors.

Read more: http://euanmearns.com/the-revealing-numbers-on-solar-employment-in-...