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Excellent coverage on the state of the solar market in today's FT. While the market is set to surge in size by threefold in the next four years this could lead to victims, as prices for panels could collapse. The key to success is the "holy grail" of "grid parity", solar analyst Dean Cooper says. Grid parity is producing solar energy at the same price as getting electricity via fossil fuels - currently solar is about double. Apparently Italy is set to be the first country that will achieve grid parity, but not surprisingly the Middle East is set to make ambitious strides to shake-up the market.
The piece quotes Steve Geiger from Masdar Solar, part of the group planning the similarly named zero carbon city, who announced a £2bn investment in solar panel manufacturing facilities last week. The region is adopting its usual think-big approach to development. "We have to make this a gigawatt-capacity business," Geiger. By such an approach his firm aims to get the price per watt of its cells down to $1.20, significantly below the current $3.80 figure.
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