Wholesale Solar Energy Costs Rivalling Coal

Bloomberg reports that wholesale solar energy costs are falling 8% a year and may already rival coal in sunny climes like the Middle East and Japan. They’re expected to be halved in the next decade.

Bloomberg writes, “Installation of solar PV systems will almost double to 32.6 gigawatts by 2013 from 18.6 gigawatts last year, New Energy Finance estimates.”

The Fukushima Nuclear Plant produced 4.7 gigawatts. However, it produced them at an extremely high cost if you factor in what it has done to the Japanese economy this year. India just stopped imports of Japanese fish, which is an extreme reaction but likely to be all too typical.

Japan has already made important advances in solar research and likely there will be new government and private sector funding for solar R & D in that country– which will help us all.