Economics of solar systems

Abstract

Large scale solar energy conversion for a variety of residential, agricultural and industrial uses may emerge as a significant part of future energy supply mix on a global scale. The timing for reaching such potential depends upon the management of solar technology, the of the various solar options, and upon the organization of their diffusion in the productive areas of their integration as a viable energy source. The contemporary management of solar technology is often too fragmented and/or departmentalized, allowing a large variety of concepts to enter the market prior to sensible standardization and quality control measures. Retrofit installations to existing buildings are receiving primary attention, although the fully integrated energy supply will offer decisively better performance and economy. In fact, several preliminary studies indicate that large scale integration of solar energy could be instrumental in decoupling future energy demands from the desired economic growth trends, which ought to be the ultimate objective of future energy policies. Solar technology, is however, still in the developmental stage, which makes projections of its competitiveness and utility in the future too speculative. The lack of actual experiences with long term reliability of solar systems, their operating and maintenance cost, and the absence of data for realistic comparison with other alternate energy systems, are among the constraining factors for pragmatic evaluation of economics. The hereby outlined economics of solar systems is, therefore, only an interim effort to stimulate interest in the state-of-the-art application of solar energy for residential space and water heating, and its possible market evolution in the Countries of the European Economic Community (EEC).