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Two groups of actors in the U.S. solar PV field were interviewed: the executives
and managers of solar PV corporations, and the experts of the U.S. solar PV field. The
expert refers to an individual who has expertise on solar PV industry, market, or policy.
A sampling frame has been set up for each group. The sampling frame for the solar PV
corporations was set up based on the list of the members of the Solar Energy Industries
Association. Among 450 members, non-profit organizations were excluded. Service
providers such as consultancy or legal service providers were also
excluded since they
were not regarded as solar PV corporations given the minor share of their solar business.
Manufacturers of components were excluded for the same reason. Among the remaining
260 companies, 40 companies, which have participated in one of the three trade shows—
2015 Solar Power International, 2016 PV Conference and Expo, and 2016 Solar Power
International—were selected as samples. A random individual was contacted in the booth
of
each corporation, and most of the individuals recommended meeting another person
who could answer the interview questions. The recommended person was contacted again
and was asked to participate to the research. Through this process, 19 representatives
from the corporations agreed to be interviewed (see Appendix A).
For setting up the sampling frame for the solar experts, the organizations and
individuals that gave their opinions on
the Chinese solar panel issue, which was one of
the most critical issues of solar PV recently, were listed. Next, the organizations relevant
to renewable energy found by Internet search were added. After an interview, some
interviewees recommended the experts who had expertise on the topic of the study. These
experts were also added in the sampling frame. As a result, the list included 15 experts.
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Each expert was contacted
via email or phone call, and 5 of them agreed to be
interviewed.
All the interviews were conducted in-person except one. One representative of a
corporation agreed with an email interview rather than an in-person interview. Some
interviewees did not agree to be recorded. In this case, the memo written during the
interview was used as data. The interviews were conducted during the period from April
20, 2015 to September 14, 2016. A pre-determined protocol was used for each interview,
but the interview questions were modified according to the expertise
of each respondent
(see Appendix D).
Archival data was obtained from the
govinfo
, the online archive of the
Government Publishing Office. All the documents related to solar policies were obtained
through searching the title of the documents including ‘solar’ or ‘photovoltaic’ in all the
publications from the three branches of the federal government. The results of the search
showed 1,148 documents. After excluding duplicated documents and the documents that
only include the search terms and were not related to solar policy, 218
documents
remained. The documents include bills, federal registers, congressional records, and the
documents on the U.S. codes. Since these documents did not include some important bills
that did not include ‘solar’ or ‘photovoltaic’ in the title,
additional documents were
obtained through searching the bills including ‘solar,’ in all the enacted bills in the
Govtrack. Through this process, 157 enacted bills were added in the dataset.
Finally, the memos written through observing conferences were used as data. A
number of sessions on diverse topic related to solar PV policy and industry were
observed in the 2015 ACORE National Renewable Energy Policy Forum, 2015 Solar
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Power International, 2016 PV Conference and Expo, and 2016
Solar Power International
(see Appendix C).
Solar PV and industry in the United States
Solar energy installation has significantly increased in recent years. The share of
solar energy in electricity generation capacity additions was only 1 percent in 2007, but it
has increased to 20 percent in 2014 (Figure 21). Rapid increase of large utility scale
projects has driven this dramatic rise of solar installation (Figure 22).
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