SOLAR SUCCEEDING ON PRICE

Solar Continues Trumping Fossil Fuel Pricing, With More Innovations To Come

Chip Register, Sept. 11, 2014 (Forbes)

“…America’s energy landscape looks significantly different. Natural gas has come well off its pre-recession highs and is now trading steadily around $4 per mmBtu, with little to no volatility. Oil and coal prices dropped as well…[But] advances made in photovoltaic (PV) cells, combined with an explosion in solar panel manufacturing in China, helped send solar prices down far faster than fossil fuels. The average solar panel now costs around 75% less than it did just five years ago and…the more solar that is put in, the faster prices drop. Citibank estimates that the price of an average solar panel falls by 30% whenever installed solar capacity doubles in a given area…[B]y 2020, they believe solar will be…successfully competing with fossil fuels on an unsubsidized basis…America’s reliance on expensive oil, relatively dirty coal and troubled nuclear power will inalterably change now that solar has become so competitive…[Until power can be stored efficiently], solar is best used to cover peak demand during the day. The backbone of the grid will shift from coal to cheap natural gas to provide the baseload generation…until grid-level battery storage becomes available somewhere toward the end of this decade. Then watch out [for solar]…” click here for more

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