Solar Photovoltaic Electricity to hit the Power Grid?
The generation of electricity from solar energy could not have been possible without the discovery of the photoelectric effect in 1839 by Becquerel (described by Einstein in his 1905 paper for which he later received the Nobel price). In 1954 the first silicon based solar cell was invented at Bell Labs and subsequently applied in the Vanguard I space satellite in 1958 where solar cells generated 1Watt of electrical power to drive the radios of the satellite. Since the Bell solar cell, that achieved 4% efficiency, the photovoltaic (PV) research focus has been on improving the efficiency of the conversion as well as lowering the costs of the device.Recently Stephen O’Rourke, a research analyst from Deutsche Bank,[1] as well as others[2]have put statements forward such as in what year electricity generated by solar panels would achieve “grid parity”. Grid parity is reached when the cost price of PV generated electricity starts to compete with the local retail price of the centrally generated grid electricity. Of course this would be without any (government) incentives. Important economic parameters solar systems are:
- - cost per Watt at module level (depends very strongly on the technology used and on the efficiency)
- - cost per Watt at system level (depends on the cost at module level and the costs of the downstream equipment, can be as high as $7/Watt for a residential system)
- - cost per kWh produced (depends on the two line items above and in addition on the lifetime of the entire system, i.e. how many kWh will be cumulatively be produced)
Sourse: Solar Photovoltaic Electricity to hit the Power Grid?
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