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Solar power competitiveness – within reach

February 12, 2010
By Henrik Raunkjær, President, Danfoss Solar Inverters
Solar power competitiveness is within reach if we stretch ourselves to take the action needed to make it happen. It requires general awareness in the public domain, political focus and incentives.

Solar power is one of the renewable sources that can make a true contribution to reducing CO2 emissions and to ensuring a secure and sustainable energy supply for the future. Investments in an intelligent mix of renewable energy sources, which show great potential, should go hand in hand with energy-efficiency solutions. By pursuing both roads we will address the CO2 challenge in the short term as well as in the long term.

Solar power on the fast track

The photovoltaic (solar electricity) industry is moving at a pace these days, a factor which will make solar power competitive to conventional electricity generation faster than one might think. The manufacturing capacity of the industry has increased extensively and solar module prices have decreased. Consequently, over the years, the cost of solar power has dropped by an average of 10% per year.

In the photovoltaic industry we are very focused on reaching “grid parity”. Grid parity means that for consumers, solar electricity compares competitively with the retail electricity price. Most European countries will reach this before 2020 and countries with high irradiation and high electricity prices will reach it in only a few years.

Support schemes needed to pave the way to competitiveness

It is necessary to support the development of a volume market and thus help the industry to cut costs and make solar competitive – to a certain extent this will also continue after grid parity has been reached to provide an incentive for upfront investment in a photovoltaic system. Germany has led the way in demonstrating how feed-in tariffs successfully support the development of solar power; initial figures indicate that new installations in Germany have reached around 3.5 GW in 2009.

The feed-in tariff model puts a legal obligation on utility companies to buy electricity from renewable energy producers at a premium rate over a guaranteed period of time, thus making it a secure investment for the producer. The extra cost is shared among all energy users. Feed-in tariffs have been proven to generate the fastest and lowest cost deployment of renewable energy. Fortunately more and more countries around the world have adopted this model.

Along with all other renewable energy resources, the pace of solar power development is dependent on the societal and political interest in coping with the CO2 emission challenge and securing the energy supply. Scale in production and cost effectiveness are needed in order to drive renewable industries towards technological breakthroughs and consequently better energy efficiency. Therefore support is required today to pave the way to competitiveness; making us independent of fossil-based energy tomorrow.
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