Catch the glitter

A new bill was introduced to the US Congress yesterday to incentivise solar power. Using incentives and tax rebates for solar roofs and solar water heaters, the bill aims to get 10 million solar roofs and 200,000 solar heaters up and running--producing a total of 30,000 megawatts--over the next 10 years.

The cost will be 2 and 3 billion dollars a year, and at the end of a 10-year period, the nation will be producing 30,000 new megawatts of energy--the equivalent of what 30 nuclear power plants produce.

Distributed power is surprisingly taking off in the developed west. Given its versatility and fewer clearance issues, this is seeing a surge. Around 1300 megawatts of such distributed solar projects have been approved in California in just the last couple of weeks.

Photovoltaic module prices, meanwhile, have plummeted by about 30 percent over the past year thanks to an oversupply of modules and the rise of low-cost Chinese manufacturers. Thin-film solar companies, which make solar cells (slightly less efficient than the crystalline counterparts) that use little or no expensive polysilicon and which layer or print them on glass or metal, have begun to produce solar modules for less than a one dollar a watt.

Looks like solar will get hotter in days to come. Perhaps with price fall, distributed solar power will also take off in the developing world where the need is much more.