Solar Power Headed For 45% Annual Growth

mdsolar writes "USA Today is running a pretty good article on solar power that gives an overview of the current state of the industry. Highlight include production costs of $1.19/Watt for First Solar, 40% annual cost reductions over the last five years, revenues expected to triple in three years, and a prediction for 2014 as the year when solar photovoltaic power plants become cheaper than other forms of generation. From the piece: 'Like wind power, solar energy is spotty, working at full capacity an average 20% to 30% of the time. Solar's big advantage is that it supplies the most electricity midday, when demand peaks. And it can be located at homes and businesses, reducing the need to build pollution-belching power plants and unsightly transmission lines. In states such as California, with high electricity prices and government incentives, solar is already a bargain for some customers. Wal-Mart recently said it's putting solar panels on more than 20 of its stores in California and Hawaii. Google is blanketing its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters with 9,212 solar panels, enough to light 1,000 homes.'"

Dude, learn your math

[everphilski]

It's going to go from 0.00001% to 0.000015%. Great!

No, silly, its gonna go up to 0.0000145% :)

In related news...

[AssCork]

Solar Output to lessen by 45%

45% Annual Growth

[Anonymous Coward]

Great. So we're just going to use up the sun's energy faster.

I hope you bastards freeze in the dark.

Seriously

[Anne_Nonymous]

>> USA Today is running a pretty good article

Also, pigs soar above the frozen wasteland that was hell.

Re:$/Watt

[Citizen of Earth]

So the reimbursement period is about (1190$ / 0.15$) ~= 8000h (less than a year).

Doesn't the 24 hours of sunlight per day you get in Europe interfere with your sleep?

Re:Understatement

[flyingfsck]

Solar energy isn't polution free - it just doesn't add to the horrible high energy radiation coming from that great big fusion plant in the sky. Go and sit outside for a couple hours over midday and see what the sun does to you. If someone was to invent the sun today, he would be sued up the wazoo for causing cancer and other problems...

Re:Political Power

[ikkonoishi]

Fuel for solar power isn't free. It is very expensive to expensive to extract it from the center of the sun.

And don't even get me started on the inefficiency of it. More than 99.9% of the Sun's energy misses the Earth entirely! I don't think solar power will ever really take off until we develop giant space based mirrors to cut down on the needless waste of the Sun's irreplaceable hydrogen reserve.