Comments on: New Energy Finance: Solar power 50% cheaper by year end, other clean energy sources drop 10%

By: Olivia

Olivia — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 21:33:57 +0000

I work with Sharp and Solar Panel Costs have come down a lot. It is a wonderful time to start thinking about changing your energy supply to solar. Added incentives right now include tax credits offered by the government and rebate offers from public utility companies.

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 20:50:16 +0000

Although solar and wind are becoming cheaper we still fail to use the energy we produce.

energthroughmotion increases the outpt of any power generating dive by up to two thirds

By: Solar Wind Power

Solar Wind Power — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 18:42:07 +0000

This is very encouraging for all house owners who wish to go green. Solar and wind power is in fact getting cheaper but all the paper work and procedures necessary to go off-grid or at least partially still represent a major slowdown for green energy development. I’ve even heard that in some EU countries you have to be on a waiting list for months for your solar and wind power system to be approved. Too bad.

By: Chris Dudley

Chris Dudley — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 00:49:01 +0000

One of the things that was keeping silicon PV prices high was a shortage of purified silicon. This is clearing up so we are beginning to see some of the benefits of scale in manufacturing as well as methods that use less raw materials. Thin film though has been a spectacular story and the US leads there. PV has further to fall and will cost less that concentrated solar thermal power in the long run.

By: Karel

Karel — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 22:25:39 +0000

@Scatter: Price drops are clearly substantial in those countries where installation of domestic solar installations is common practice. For example, domestic installation prices in Germany have dropped by 26% since last year: http://www.solarwirtschaft.de/preisindex.

FYI: A very good source for PV module prices, you can find here: http://www.pvxchange.com/ en/ index.php/ preisindex_3.html

Prices are in euro and the language is German, but the diagrams should be clear to everyone.

By: Scatter

Scatter — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 21:34:53 +0000

When is this going to feed through to domestic scale installations though? There seems to be little sign of price drops over here in the UK even though people have been talking about significant drops in the wider market for a while now…

Hopefully the feed in tariff will kick the market into action.

By: Bill

Bill — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 19:24:24 +0000

Roughly a decade ago, Resources for the Future did a review of previous cost projections for renewables in order to determine why renewables had not displaced oil, coal, etc. The conclusion was that renewables had actually met the prior forecasts for declining prices, but prices for oil and coal had dropped as well.
Without government action (e.g., cap-and-trade or a GHG-tax to put a price on GHGs or a renewable portfolio standard), this same sequence is likely to retard renewables in the future. The fact is that coal and oil are cheap to produce and burn and the necessary infrastructure exists for both. They are made cheaper by the direct and indirect subsidies they receive and the fact that their prices do not compensate for the health and environmental damages they do. Any time demand is reduced by renewables, efficiency or a weak economy, the prices for oil and coal will fall until market share is regenerated. Further, massive investments in innovative ways to produce oil and coal at lower costs are made every year by those industries, often with government support (e.g., “clean coal” funding).
Thus, we should be glad that renewables are getting cheaper, but without government actions to restrain use of coal and oil, those dirty fuels will continue to pollute the planet at unacceptable levels. The market alone will not solve this issue. Without government action, we’re toast.

By: David Murray

David Murray — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 19:05:39 +0000

Dear Joe,

This is very good news – distributed roof top solar has to be the long term solution iff the costs can be dragged down far enough.

At the utility level concentrated solar thermal, geothermal and hot rocks are the most hopeful.

Concentrated solar thermal is not only baseload solar. It is even better because it is dispatchable solar. Dispatchable, not base load, is the creme de la creme.

Kind regards.