There are three articles in today's paper FT about solar power - about how rapidly costs are falling and how in some circumstances it's already at grid parity.
I think FT stuff falls behind a pay wall fairly quickly, here are two I found on the website:
US solar power nears competing on price
"US solar power will compete on price with conventional generation within three years without subsidy thanks to plummeting costs, industry leaders say." http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/05a4354a-91fe ... z1OmA556Ai
Solar power industry looks on the bright side
Solar industry executives have talked for years of the day when their energy would be able to compete effectively with other forms of power generation, a point called “grid parity”. Now that day may finally be at hand." http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a62f4558-91eb ... z1OmA556Ai
The Mott McDonald report is designed to tell the client what they wanted to hear - as is always the case. The truth lies in statements in the report to the effect that the costs include no allowance for coverage of response, reserve and intermittancy, and are heavily influenced by the costing of fuels and carbon offsets.
Perhaps it would be a tad more realsitic to look at where we are right now for an immediate comparison, and to view any estimates for the future with a great deal of caution?
An Inspector Calls wrote:Perhaps it would be a tad more realsitic to look at where we are right now for an immediate comparison?
No, that's absolutely not the approach to take when we know we are in a state of change. We can say with confidence that "where we are right now" is not where we're going to be a decade from now. The realistic thing to do is to estimate the future trajectories (of fossil fuel prices, of import to indigenous supply ratio, of carbon legislation, of technology change etc...) and plan accordingly.
Planning/building for today when we know all the key metrics are changing is just daft.
I'm not saying, as you try to suggest, we plan for today (whatever that daft expression means), merely saying we should test any hypothesis against the present and the immediate future.
It's all very well saying we should look to the future, but DECC (the 'source' of the Motts' report) also has projections for future indexed domestic price rises which suggest nothing commensurate with a hike of coal generation to £91/MWh (and gas to ~£61.MWh). This suggests the official projections might well be suspect and adds more validity to a rain-check against present reallity.
So whats the cost per watt of solar now? Because its been "about to hit $1/w" for as long as I can remember.
And are these coal prices actual coal prices, or coal prices and projected green taxes, projections based on whatever number it took to make solar "almost viable"?
It seems odd that coal is 50% more expensive than gas, when, thats simply not reflected in the real world
Using FITs tarriffs, you'd expect a kWh of cheap solar to come in at a mere £500/MWh. If they pay you that, you get your money back after about 10 years. Then in another three years you recover the interest you lost from buying the panels. By then, the panel will probably be dead.
As for the installation cost, it seems to be about £2.92/W.
