The soaring price of electricity means solar power may be competitive with other energy sources sooner than expected–one solar CEO thinks it could happy by 2010. Reuters reports:
The tipping point at which the world’s cleanest, most renewable resource is cost-competitive with other sources of energy on electricity grids could happen within two to five years in some U.S. regions and countries if the price of fossil fuels continues to rise at its current pace, they add.
“In the long run — as in two to three years — you should see competitiveness especially with the grid in a number of regions in the world,” said Vishal Shah, an analyst who tracks the industry at U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers.
Tom Werner, chief executive of SunPower Corp, the largest North American solar company by sales, sees such “grid parity” for solar power in the United States and elsewhere happening in about five years, or possibly as soon as 2010.
“That’s actually more aggressive than what we would say previously, and that’s because the cost of electricity is going up faster than we had ever modeled,” Werner said an interview at the Reuters Global Energy Summit on June 3.
“It is becoming more and more clear it is a real possibility, and we believe, a reality,” he said.
Tags: solar power
