Solar power shines on photo voltaic panel price crash
THE TIMES OF INDIA - JAIPUR: Riding on the crash in photo voltaic (PV) panel prices, the solar power sector in India had a dream run last year with capacity ballooning to 940MW in 2011-12 from a paltry 20MW in 2010-11. That's just statistics. What's significant and not borne out by these statistics is the fact that the cost of power from solar is now on a par with the cost of power from new coal-based plants.
In industry parlance, it's referred to as grid parity, considered the holy grail of solar power. Grid-parity is the point where the cost of electricity generated from sunshine becomes competitive with that of power produced from coal, gas, wind and hydro-based plants.
