A report issued recently by CPV Today says that the levelized cost of electricity from concentrated photovoltaics "could fall as low" as 8 cents per kilowatthour in 2015, from 26 cents/kWh currently. Installation costs of highly concentrating PV--that is to say, CPV's average capital costs--"are set" to fall 49 percent to $2.47/W in 2015 from $4.84/W today.
What stands out in these industry-friendly formulations is the use of phrases like "could" and "set to." Even in this almost avowedly optimistic assessment, current CPV generating costs are a great deal higher than average electricity costs today and are almost sure to remain significantly higher five years from how. Compared with wind energy, solar's closest competitor, CPV installation costs will be at least 20 percent higher five years from now than wind capital costs are today.
The outlook for CPV is of particular interest because concentrating PV is sometimes considered closer to commercial competitiveness than standard PV, especially in relatively large plants that produce electricity for the grid. The CPV Today report mentions, in this connection, a 59 MW plant being built in Taiwan.
An alternative to CPVÂ is thermal solar, in which for example an oil is warmed by parabolic mirrors and the heat is transferred to a molten salt in tanks, where steam is generated to drive turbines. Physics Nobelist Robert Laughlin has been giving talks in which he touts that solar technology, mentioning a plant in southern Spain (Andasol, above). But there too, Laughlin concedes, generating costs are at present about 30 cents/kWh, about five times average electricity costs.
