US scientists have proposed a new method to compare the cost of solar energy technology with traditional sources as current methods may not give a realistic result
Seth Darling and colleagues from the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois have used a simulation that gives distributions of values for variable parameters such as weather, solar panel performance, operating costs and inflation to more accurately reflect the overall cost.
‘For solar energy to make a significant dent in the overall energy mix, its cost will have to be similar to or lower than traditional sources such as fossil fuels,’ says Darling, ‘but to make this comparison, you need to know how to calculate the cost.’
‘The results indicate that the real discount rate is the most relevant factor,‘ says José Goldemberg, an expert on energy and environmental issues from the University of São Paulo, Brazil.
Darling hopes that stakeholders in the energy community will adopt his approach. The biggest challenge, he says, is getting performance data from diverse geographic locations.
‘We hope that partnerships between the solar energy industry, utility providers and national laboratories will focus on collecting the data and making it accessible to those interested in exploring the potential of solar energy,’ he concludes.
Read more of the Chemistry World feature here…
View the Energy Environmental Science Analysis article:
Assumptions and the levelized cost of energy for photovoltaics
Seth B. Darling, Fengqi You, Thomas Veselka and Alfonso Velosa
Energy Environ. Sci., 2011, DOI: 10.1039/c0ee00698j
