7.2: Overarching Priorities This framework suggests three overarching priorities for U.S. policymakers in building a domestic solar sector that delivers long-term economic benefit:
? seek above all else to reduce solar power’s costs, a goal clarified, as explained in Section 7.2.1 below, in November 2016 in newly aggressive cost-cutting targets— cuts on the order of 50%—issued by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Technologies Office, also known as the SunShot Initiative;319
? embrace the reality of a globalizing solar industry;
? and focus federal support for solar in the United States primarily on R&D and deployment and only secondarily on manufacturing
As explained in Section 1.2, according to one informed estimate, building a cumulative 3,000 gigawatts of solar capacity by 2030 would require some $265 billion in investment in new manufacturing capacity, and building a cumulative 10,000 gigawatts by 2030 would require approximately $817 billion in new manufacturing capacity. What is more, actually deploying the solar goods produced by this hugely expanded solar-manufacturing base, so that the goods produced and delivered electricity to consumers, would require many trillions of dollars more.
