In Solar Energy Tough Love, I described the perverse impacts of government industrial policy on the solar energy sector in its vainglorious attempt to choose winners and losers. That policy is failing, Solyndra aside.
The market gods hate to be trifled with, and they respond with thunderbolts and torment. Solar’s pain will continue until grid parity is reached. In the meantime, the solar energy sector must purge itself of government subsidies and address its weak financial performance.
So when I read the story in the trade press about SunPower’s wider Q2 losses I decided to get beyond the numbers to look at some of the market factors tormenting the solar business and holding back its true potential.
One key fact is that solar energy demand is up, but so are input costs for solar panels.
[Ed. note: David Bergeron is president of SunDanzer Development, Inc., a solar energy company located in Tucson. His earlier posts at MasterResource are Free-Market Solar: The Real Opportunity and Economic/Environmental Assessment of Grid-Tiered Photovoltaics: Arizona Lessons for the U.S.]
“The economic case for grid-tied PV is indeed quite hopeless, and the sooner we stop the misguided subsidies the sooner we can focus on actually addressing our legitimate energy and environmental concerns.”
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) recently published an excellent report on the projected cost of electricity generated by different technologies: coal, natural gas, nuclear, and various others, including renewables.
Levelized Cost of Energy
Their Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) calculation combines upfront cost with recurring cost to estimate the average cost of power produced by these technologies. Here is the EIA cost datafor coal, natural gas, and solar PV.…
Continue ReadingThe numbers are in for this year’s summer sea ice extent in the Arctic Ocean. By most measures the ice loss in 2011 came in a close second to the current and still record holder, 2007.
But the failure to set a new record for the least amount of summer Arctic sea ice observed during the satellite era (which begins in 1979) has done little to alter the overall picture of what is going on there. Summer sea ice has been in decline in the Arctic Ocean since, conservatively, the mid-20th century, and it has been picking up steam. And sea ice declines in the Arctic are now pretty clearly discernible in the other seasons as well. (What has been going on around Antarctica is a different story).
But for those who lose sleep at night over the implications of the Arctic sea ice loss to both the local, regional, and global environments, there is a silver lining.…
Continue Reading