IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v38y2010i11p7519-7530.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Should solar photovoltaics be deployed sooner because of long operating life at low, predictable cost?

Author

Listed:
  • Zweibel, Ken

Abstract

Governments subsidize the deployment of solar photovoltaics (PV) because PV is deployed for societal purposes. About seven thousand megawatts were deployed in 2009 and over 10,000 are expected in 2010. Yet this is too slow to strongly affect energy and environmental challenges. Faster societal deployment is slowed because PV is perceived to be too costly. Classic economic evaluations would put PV electricity in the range of 15-50Â c/kWh, depending on local sunlight and system size. But PV has an unusual, overlooked value: systems can last for a very long time with almost no operating costs, much like, e.g., the Hoover Dam. This long life is rarely taken into account. The private sector cannot use it because far-future cash flow does not add to asset value. But we should not be evaluating PV by business metrics. Governments already make up the difference in return on investment needed to deploy PV. PV deployment is government infrastructure development or direct purchases. Thus the question is: Does the usually unevaluated aspect of long life at predictably low operating costs further motivate governments to deploy more PV, sooner?

Suggested Citation

  • Zweibel, Ken, 2010. "Should solar photovoltaics be deployed sooner because of long operating life at low, predictable cost?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(11), pages 7519-7530, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:38:y:2010:i:11:p:7519-7530
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301-4215(10)00570-7
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Weinberg, Alvin M., 1985. "`Immortal' energy systems and intergenerational justice," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 51-59, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Benjamin K. Sovacool & Mari Martiskainen & Andrew Hook & Lucy Baker, 2019. "Decarbonization and its discontents: a critical energy justice perspective on four low-carbon transitions," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 155(4), pages 581-619, August.
    2. Aurore Flipo & Madeleine Sallustio & Nathalie Ortar & Nicolas Senil, 2021. "Sustainable Mobility and the Institutional Lock-In: The Example of Rural France," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-20, February.
    3. Zaher Mundher Yaseen & Ameen Mohammed Salih Ameen & Mohammed Suleman Aldlemy & Mumtaz Ali & Haitham Abdulmohsin Afan & Senlin Zhu & Ahmed Mohammed Sami Al-Janabi & Nadhir Al-Ansari & Tiyasha Tiyasha &, 2020. "State-of-the Art-Powerhouse, Dam Structure, and Turbine Operation and Vibrations," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-40, February.
    4. A. Pouris*, 1987. "On the Economics of Nuclear and Coal ‐ Fired Electricity Generation," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 55(4), pages 267-276, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Electricity Climate change Solar PV;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:38:y:2010:i:11:p:7519-7530. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.