Falling cost of Solar Power Poised to Revolutionize Power Industry

The rapid improvement in the technology and freefall in costs since early 2010 have brought about major transformation in the solar industry. Systems that were completely unaffordable or impractical just two years ago are now cost effective. To put that into perspective, the cost of installing a solar system two years ago and today is not the same. A house that is entirely off the national power grid would have cost $10,000 in 2011. But today the entire installation will can be done for under $5,400.

Product quality is improving too, as customers demand better product with longer warranty. When all these improvements are combined, it is no wonder that solar is making such great leaps forward. For more applications than ever before, solar is the best and most cost effective way to generate electricity. 

The burning question is why has Africans not come to embrace this new form of energy. The source is free and it’s ever reliable. The technology is clean and the product durability is almost one’s lifetime.

Over the coming years, all the signs are that the technology and the industry will continue to evolve at a similar pace. In the next three years, solar will become the cheapest way of generating electricity available. 

We are likely to see solar energy incorporated into more and more everyday objects such as laptop computers, mobile phones – even clothing. Meanwhile, solar energy is going to cause a revolution for large areas of Asia and Africa where entire communities currently have no access to electricity. 

Even large scale solar projects - entire solar power stations, capable of generating many megawatts of electricity, are now becoming feasible. In the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Mexico, solar photovoltaic power stations are now generating electricity for entire towns. In Spain, new giant thermo-solar power stations have come up with new ways of not only generating electricity during the day, but storing the sun's energy so that it can be used for generating electricity overnight. 

As an easy to use and low carbon energy generator, solar is without equal. The technology is likely to touch every person on the planet in the next 30years to come. Its potential for changing the way we think about energy in the future is huge.