EDITORSVIEW
What drive’s the industry?
or some time the PV industry has sought some sort of metric to ride the industry along much like Moore’s law provided a metric of comparative success for semiconductor engineers. The chase to grid parity had been cited as a positive metric to enable the industry to determine how it was evolving in relation to a particular goal. However, grid parity has not defined an industry standard but is in fact a much more complex beast that is more likely to cloud the real and potential opportunities in the PV industry.
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The main problem with choosing grid parity as a determinator is the fact that it is an inconsistent metric that changes depending on geography, subsidy and local access to other energy sources. It is easy to talk of grid parity in Hawaii but will that same equation work in Nepal? Or in the Sahara desert where the inhospitable climate ensures difficulty in infrastructure development and often leads to equipment malfunction. By aligning company and industry goals to a moving target there is a danger of a lack of discernable direction. People outside of the semiconductor industry do not realise the impact and power that Gordon Moore’s supposition provided that evolving industry. By extrapolating that the industry would expand at a given rate of double the transistors for half the cost every 12 - 18 months, Moore provided an immediate reference for an industry finding its way. It was simple. Either at the end of 18 months the industry had continued to prove Moore right, or they felt a collective failure.
This same directive will not work with grid parity. There are too many variables and the equation is not simple due to local variations. It has become a catch word in an industry that is trying to provide energy alternatives and should not be forced to compete with the energy companies that a growing proportion of society continues to suggest have run their course. By choosing grid parity as a parameter the industry is setting itself up for a fall. Prices can be manipulated and with so many competing alternatives the solar and PV industry requires an internal goal post to hang their ambitions on. Using the competition you are hoping to replace as the metric strikes me as a disaster in waiting providing competitors with the ammunition required to dilute the industry efforts.
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David Ridsdale Editor-in-Chief
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www.solar-pv-management.com Issue IV 2010
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