Photovoltaic Technology Is Electricity for All

Abstract

Installations of photovoltaic (PV) in the 1970s and 1980s were limited to kilowatts, while in the 2010s, we speak in terms of megawatts. The cost of most renewable energy systems has been reduced by so much that they have reached parity with fossil fuels or are even cheaper. The most effective progress has been made in photovoltaic systems: the cost of turnkey installations say for 5 MW is no more than $6 million. Governments in European countries are using feed-in tariffs which has made the payback period of installing a large system less than 1.25 years. Countries such as Morocco have pledged to produce 42 % of their electricity from renewable energy by 2020, while Austria has declared that by 2050, all its energy will come from renewable sources.