http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328505.000-indias-panel-price-crash-could-spark-solar-revolution.html

SOLAR power has always had a reputation for being expensive, but not for
much longer. In India, electricity from solar is now cheaper than that
from diesel generators. The news - which will boost India's "Solar
Mission" to install 20,000 megawatts of solar power by 2022 - could have
implications for other developing nations too.

Recent figures from market analysts Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF)
show that the price of solar panels fell by almost 50 per cent in 2011.
They are now just one-quarter of what they were in 2008. That makes them
a cost-effective option for many people in developing countries.

A quarter of people in India do not have access to electricity,
according to the International Energy Agency's 2011 World Energy Outlook
report. Those who are connected to the national grid experience frequent
blackouts. To cope, many homes and factories install diesel generators.
But this comes at a cost. Not only does burning diesel produce carbon
dioxide, contributing to climate change, the fumes produced have been
linked to health problems from respiratory and heart disease to cancer.

Now the generators could be on their way out. In India, electricity from
solar supplied to the grid has fallen to just 8.78 rupees per
kilowatt-hour compared with 17 rupees for diesel. The drop has little to
do with improvements in the notoriously poor efficiency of solar panels:
industrial panels still only convert 15 to 18 per cent of the energy
they receive into electricity. But they are now much cheaper to produce,
so inefficiency is no longer a major sticking point.

It is all largely down to economies of scale, says Jenny Chase, head of
solar analysis at BNEF. In 2011, enough solar panels were produced
worldwide to generate 27 gigawatts, compared with 7.7 GW in 2009. Chase
says solar power is now cheaper than diesel "anywhere as sunny as
Spain". That means vast areas of Latin America, Africa and Asia could
start adopting solar power. "We have been selling to Asia and the Middle
East," says Björn Emde, European spokesman for Suntech, the world's
largest producer of silicon panels. Over the next few years he expects
to add South Africa and Nigeria to that list.

The one thing stopping households buying a solar panel is the initial
cost, says Amit Kumar, director of energy-environment technology
development at The Energy and Resources Institute in New Delhi, India.
Buying a solar panel is more expensive than buying a diesel generator,
but according to Chase's calculations solar becomes cheaper than diesel
after seven years. The panels last 25 years.

Even in India, solar electricity remains twice as expensive as
electricity from coal, but that may soon change. While the price drop in
2011 was exceptional, analysts agree that solar will keep getting
cheaper. Suntech's in-house analysts predict that, by 2015, solar
electricity will be as cheap as grid electricity in half of all
countries. When that happens, expect to see solar panels wherever you go.

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FFF
Dirk

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