Making Photovoltaic Power Competitive with Grid Power

Author

Gowrishankar, Vignesh ; Mutton, D. ; Fluhrer, Caroline ; Dasgupta, Neil

Author_Institution

Dept. of Manage. Sci. & Eng., Stanford Univ., CA

Volume

2

fYear

2006

fDate

38838

Firstpage

2532

Lastpage

2535

Abstract

Photovoltaic (PV) systems are currently too expensive to compete with grid power. After discussing the cost breakdown of currently available PV technology, we analyze the retail prices of PV necessary to become competitive with grid-power in various geographic and economic scenarios. We also address to what extents a tax on carbon emissions as well as inherent cost reductions in PV may influence and achieve PV´s competitiveness with grid-power. The analyses focus on the US, but may be suitably extended to other locations

Keywords

cost reduction; environmental economics; photovoltaic power systems; power system economics; pricing; taxation; PV technology; US; carbon emissions tax; cost breakdown; cost reductions; economic scenarios; geographic scenarios; grid power; photovoltaic power; retail prices; Batteries; Costs; Economic indicators; Electric breakdown; Inverters; Photovoltaic systems; Power engineering and energy; Power generation economics; Power system economics; Solar power generation;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Energy Conversion, Conference Record of the 2006 IEEE 4th World Conference on

Conference_Location

Waikoloa, HI

Print_ISBN

1-4244-0017-1

Electronic_ISBN

1-4244-0017-1

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/WCPEC.2006.279761

Filename

4060196