February 27, 2009
A breakthrough has been reached in solar power technology, after thin-film manufacturer First Solar has claimed it has broken the $1 per watt barrier.
The company has announced that it has produced modules which cost 98 cents (68 pence) per watt of power produced, widely considered to be the point where solar power can start to seriously compete with fossil fuels.
Ken Zweibel, director of the Institute for the Analysis of Solar Energy at the George Washington University, said: "This represents a major milestone for the solar industry. In order to address climate change in a meaningful way, we need energy technologies that are affordable, scalable and have a low environmental impact on a life-cycle basis."
Prices of solar power will continue to fall, and First Solar hopes to increase its production capacity from 500 megawatts to one gigawatt throughout 2009, the equivalent of the average nuclear power station.
The breakthrough comes after a 2006 paper, which explained how solar panel technology could be made more efficient, and therefore more cost effective, was announced as the most cited article published in the journal Natural Materials.
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