IS SOLAR POWER CHEAPER THAN GAS?
Solar power is becoming more competitive with electricity as solar prices fall and electricity prices rise, a Greentech Media analyst said at a conference Monday.
Electricity is most expensive when demand is highest, while the sun shines most during the afternoons, which is a time of peak demand.
So the first place that solar will be competitive is for peak power, said Daniel Englander, an analyst for Greentech Media, who added that solar is already competitive with the cost of some of that expensive power.
For example, in the summer, when electricity demand regularly exceeds baseload capacity in the afternoon, it's cheaper – and requires fewer power-generating facilities – to mix photovoltaic power with natural gas to meet peak demand than to rely only on natural gas, he said.
And the cost of buying solar from a plant would be expected to stay the same, when a utility signs a power-purchase agreement with a solar provider, while the price of natural gas is expected to continue to increase.
Travis Bradford, president of the Prometheus Institute, a Greentech Media partner, also agreed that the true price of solar – including auxiliary costs, such as financing – are falling.
"Nearly every analysis overestimates the cost of solar energy," he said.
Englander expects solar costs to become competitive with the cost of producing traditional electricity by 2017.
THIN-FILM SOLAR POWER VS CRYSTALLINE SILICON
Thin-film solar has been reducing costs more quickly than other forms of solar power, analysts said.
For example, the total cost of a system using First Solar (NSDQ: FSLR) panels comes out to 10 percent less per watt than comparable systems using traditional crystalline silicon, Bradford said.
Thin-film manufacturing capacity also could be cheaper than crystalline capacity to build and expand, he said.
