The Solar Energy Market Has Always Been Unpredictable

August 27, 2009 by mike.

and it’s not because you can’t count on sunshine every day, it’s because countries have not been able to have consistent policies about solar power development. I guess that’s the bad news.

The good news is that solar power is really the primary source for future energy needs. An immense amount of solar energy falls on this planet, free of charge, every day. A distributed energy grid with small solar essentially everywhere has the potential to be the mainstay of electrical generation.

When we wake up to this fact and commit to dependable incentives for development of this distributed solar electric generating system, we start down the right road.

Any day now would be fine.

clipped from www.nytimes.com More Sun for Less: Solar Panels Drop in Price When Greg Hare looked into putting solar panels on his ranch-style home in Magnolia, Tex., last year, he decided he could not afford it. “I had no idea solar was so expensive,” he recalled. But the cost of solar panels has plunged lately, changing the economics for many homeowners. Mr. Hare ended up paying $77,000 for a large solar setup that he figures might have cost him $100,000 a year ago. The price drops — coupled with recently expanded federal incentives — could shrink the time it takes solar panels to pay for themselves to 16 years, from 22 years, in places with high electricity costs, according to Glenn Harris, chief executive of SunCentric, a solar consulting group. That calculation does not include state rebates, which can sometimes improve the economics considerably.

Posted in News, Small Foot Print, Global Warming | Print | 1 Comment »