More on Solar Electricity Cost, PHOTON Consulting
“By 2010, solar electricity will be produced for $0.12 per kilowatt-hours (kWh) in Spain, $0.18 in Southern Germany, and $0.13 in California. The industry leaders will even be able to produce solar electricity in Spain for as low as $0.10/kWh, which is equivalent to the delivered cost of electricity from a new coal power plant. These economics could quickly result in a very large market opportunity for solar energy." These are the results of an international study by PHOTON Consulting, which are being presented in Munich. For more about this study, see the solar verlag Press Release 4/4/07 (contact:
[email protected]).
http://www.photon-expo.com/en/pts_2007_europe/ssc_2007_program.htm or
http://tinyurl.com/27fpk3Normally I might say something like "I'd sure would like somebody to show me the arithmetic on that" but of course we all know that its just hype, right? I mean you do know that this is just a spin right?
A cost per kWh of electricity from Sunshine via photovoltaic effect?
For one thing there are just to many variables, the weather just to mention one, to make a claim as accurate as the one stated in the article above. At best it would be an average that could swing +/- $0.15 per kWh stretched out over a persons average lifetime.
Isn't it amazing how for thousand of years human beings on the planet Earth lived without the utilization's of electricity and now here we are putting a price tag on the one thing that has kept us alive all this time.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not against renewable energies, or even PV specifically, part of my own PV array is Matrix/Photon but that PV array was put in place only after more than 20 years of living without any electricity at all. So you see, to me electricity, all be it more favorable, PV electricity is a luxury, not a savior. With that in mind maybe you can see why I remain cynical or at least not "forward thinking" of the PV industry in general and there claims. To me they offer hope, where no hope was lost.
Who owns the Sun anyway?