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March 20, 2006
Cypress: Solar Power to be Competitive in Five Years
Solar power will be competitive with mainstream electricity generation method in five years according to Cypress Semiconductor, which has a solar cell manufacturing subsidiary, SunPower. Norm Taffe, executive vice president of Cypress, said that We're four to five years away from the point at which solar is cost-effective with traditional electricity generation without any subsidy. SunPower has a higher conversion efficiency of 20%, the highest in the industry and doesn't see much improvement in that, rather sees cost savings coming from increasing production efficiencies. Cypress's forecast of when solar PV costs will be competitive with traditional electricity generation is optimistic by my usually optimistic estimates, at least for silicon PV cells. SunPower, because of its affiliation with Cypress doesn't have to worry nearly as much about silicon supplies, but that doesn't mean that their cost will be any less. According to forecasts I have seen, we will have a silicon shortage until 2009. Until then cost reductions, for the most...Posted by dymaxion at March 20, 2006 04:32 PM