Crisis = danger + opportunity for change
We assist in identifying and implementing the positive steps for Sustainability Opportunities
Toolkit Focus — Calculating Solar Costs and Paybacks
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Opportunity in Focus — Third Generation Solar
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“Cheaper than Coal”
Solar panel industry achieves Holy Grail:
$1 per watt grid-parity
Grid Parity is where solar panels compete directly with conventional coal and nuclear power on price alone. Grid parity was predicted by most industry experts to arrive in about 2015, however it has come sooner than expected.
A leading solar power company based in the US, has reduced its manufacturing costs for solar modules to US$0.98 per watt, breaking the $1 per watt price barrier. At the same time, their annual production capacity will double to more than 1 Gigawatt, the equivalent of an average-sized nuclear power plant.
The third generation thin film cadmium telluride (CdTe) solar panels have an active layer just one hundredth of the thickness of conventional silicon solar panels. The cadmium telluride layer is placed on glass substrate in a continuous process that does not require the high vacuum production equipment used in conventional solar panel manufacturing. The continuous manufacturing process takes one tenth of the time of silicon solar panels, leading to much cheaper panels. These modules also have the smallest carbon footprint of any current photovoltaic (PV) technology.
Conventional silicon solar panel costs are also set to fall, as mass production economies of scale kick in.
There are also other solar technologies on the horizon including cells based on copper indium galliumdiselenide (CIGS), silicon on glass, thermal power stations, plastic based solar panels, and dye based solar nanotechnologies of which are all competing to lower the cost of solar cells.
We look forward to when organisations and households are installing solar because it is cheap, as well because of the numerous environmental benefits that come from the technology.
