Navigant Research is not the Sierra Club or the Obama Administration. It is corporate America. And so its stunning numbers about the costs of solar might be taken seriously by those folks who still sneer and joke about power from the sun.
Navigant forecasts that solar around the world will cost fully installed $1.50 to $2.19 per watt without subsidies and produce electricity nearly everywhere at a price as cheap or cheaper than grid power.
http://www.navigantresearch.com/wp-assets/uploads/2013/07/MD-SMF-13-Executive-Summary.pdf
By comparison, the nuclear power plant that the United Kingdom has just decided to build and that will operate in about 10 years will supposedly cost $12 per watt.
As a consequence of cheap solar, Navigant forecasts that the global solar market jumps from 35,000 megawatts in 2013 to more than 70,000 megawatts by 2020. Or the solar market would go from the equivalent of building about 9 nuclear plants this year to 18 in 2020.
You could be excused of thinking that the Navigant forecast must be at the high end of the range. Actually, it is not. For example, Deutsche Bank's forecast is similar or even more bullish for solar.
No comments:
Post a Comment