Solar Electricity Costs to Fall by A Factor of 4 by 2010

Here's a quote from the link:

"The average retail price of electricity for September 2008 was 10.31 cents per kilowatthour (kWh)...

"The average price of residential electricity for September 2008 decreased 0.16 cents to 11.94 cents per kWh, down from 12.10 cents per kWh in August 2008 when cooling demand was higher. At 11.94 cents per kWh, the average residential price of electricity increased by 9.1 percent from September 2007. These increases in the retail electricity prices are influenced by the increases in fossil fuel prices for the same period..."

Here, by the way, is the price of solar electricity, 21.36 cents/kwh as of today's accession. If the solar price seems a tad high, help is on the way...

Solar experts were asked to predict when solar electricity prices would hit 5 cents a kwh, less than half of grid prices, and 1/4 of the solarbuzz price as of January 5, 2009.

The answer from Thomas Surek at the NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory) - and if he doesn't know, who would - will surprise and delight you: 2010! Next year!

Don Osbourn of the Sacramento Muncipal Utility District, SMUD - which until recently was most famous for replacing the 938 MW Rancho Seco nuclear reactor with 3 M"W" of solar cells, proving once and for all that 938 = 3 - thinks Surek is being pessimistic. He predicts that solar electricity will be 5 cents per kwh in negative nine years, 2000. He is much more optimistic than Frank Goodman of the Electric Power Research Institute who predicts a far more modest negative 4 years, 2005.

Frank was not as enthusiastic about when we might see solar assisted cars, saying they would only be available by 2010, whereas Don predicted they would be available in negative eleven years, 1998, while Steven Strong of Solar Design Associates said they will be available in negative twelve years, 1997.

The consensus was that solar assisted cars will be available in negative 8 years by 2001, hopefully before George W. Bush takes office and ruins everything.

Reprinted from NNadir's Diary of Daily Kos.