Solar Power a "Loser"

The Renewable Energy blog covers a new report on solar photovotaic (PV) cells indicating that solar is more expensive than fossil fuels, and even more expensive than other renewables.

The photovoltaic panels now in popular use for solar power generation are not worth their cost, according to a U.C. Berkeley report.

Severin Borenstein, director of the U.C. Energy Institute and a professor at the University of California, Berkeley’s business school, called existing technology “a loser” in a research paper. “We are throwing money away by installing the current solar PV technology,” he said.

...In his analysis, Borenstein found that a typical PV system costs between $86,000 and $91,000 to install, while the value of its power over its lifetime ranges from $19,000 to $51,000. Even assuming a 5 percent annual increase in electric costs and a 1 percent interest rate, the cost of a PV system is 80 percent greater than the value of the electricity it will produce. In his paper, Borenstein also factored in the value of greenhouse gas reductions into his calculations, and found that at current prices the PV technology still doesn’t deliver.

PV also cannot take full advantage of Moore's Law to "perpetually" shrink and deliver more/better/faster/cheaper. Increased use can bring down the price through manufacturing scale and experience, but solar may have a tough road to hoe for the foreseeable future.

Of course, this does not take into account potential foreign policy benefits of non-oil energy sources. And that does not take into account all the side effects of that thought either -- more efficient usage generally results to lower prices leading to increased overall usage. Higher prices tend to generate competitive replacements.

See also this SJ Mercury News article.