Though universally agreed to be a renewable resource with great promise, solar power has been slow to take off. The market's evolving perspective of the economics of photovoltaic (PV) systems has been a major reason for this. With all the emphasis placed on the cost of system component acquisition and installation and the debate over governmental subsidy policies, factors that haven't received the attention they deserve include maximizing energy harvest of systems (beyond simply looking at energy conversion efficiency) and reducing the lifecycle cost of operating the PV system. An understanding of this has caused power planners to shift their thinking to establish a new measure of economic attractiveness that takes these factors into account: the levelized cost of energy (LCOE).
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