SOLAR IS POISED TO UNDERCUT NUCLEAR POWER IN AN 'HISTORIC CROSSOVER'

摘要

The cost of generating power from solar photovoltaic (PV) systems has steadily fallen over the last 10 years - a PV system now costs about half of what it did in 1998 - while the projected costs of constructing new nuclear plants have ballooned.Developments in solar technology and manufacturing processes combined with a steady increase in demand are causing the reduction in costs and that decline is expected to continue. The average price of a PV module in 2010 was US$1.50/W and by mid-year that figure is expected to drop to a maximum of $1.10/W.Research in the US has concluded that the costs of solar power and nuclear have reached a point of 'Historic Crossover'. A paper from Duke University in North Carolina, 'Solar and Nuclear Costs - The Historic Crossover, Solar Energy is Now the Better Buy', concludes:' Here in North Carolina, solar electricity, once the most expensive of the "renewables" has become cheaper than electricity from new nuclear plants'.Authors John Blackburn and Sam Cunningham write: 'The state's largest utilities are holding on tenaciously to plans dominated by massive investments in new, risky and ever-more-costly nuclear plants, while they limit or reject offers of more solar electricity. Those utilities seem oblivious to the real trends in energy economics and technology that are occurring in competitive markets. It is true that solar electricity enjoys tax benefits which, at the moment, help lower costs to customers. However, since the late 1990s the trend of cost decline in solar technology has been so great that solar electricity is fully expected to be cost-competitive without subsidies within the decade. Nuclear plants likewise benefit from various subsidies - and have so benef itted throughout their history.' They predict the price of nuclear generation to be 16-18 US cents/W, as compared to solar PV at 14 US cents/W by the end of the year.