First Solar Reaches Grid-Parity Milestone ?  

Greentech Media has a post on a report that First Solar's new thin film solar power plant in Nevada has is cost competitive with coal fired power (aka "grid parity") - First Solar Reaches Grid-Parity Milestone, Says Report.

First Solar has made it to grid parity, according to at least one analyst.

A 12.6-megawatt system installed by First Solar (NSDQ: FSLR) for Sempra Generation showed that the system can produce electricity at below the price of conventional power in the United States, said Mark Bachman, an equity analyst at Pacific Crest, in a research note Tuesday.

The system can generate 12.6 megawatts of power in direct current, which is then converted to alternating current to feed the electric grid. First Solar announced the project as a 10-megawatt (AC) power plant earlier this year.

The plant, located in the Nevada desert near Boulder City, costs $0.075 per kilowatt hour to install without any subsidies, Bachman wrote. Conventional power fed into the grid costs $0.09 per kilowatt hour.

"In our view, the industry leaders will be those companies that can deliver electricity at or below grid parity pricing without the aid of subsidies while also delivering superior return to shareholders," Bachman said. "Currently, only First Solar can claim these achievements, in our view."

Bachman's cost calculations, of course, are impacted by a number of factors and others will likely come to different conclusions. Part of the calculation relies on what others are achieving in other locations with different kinds of panels. Nonetheless, it underscores the progress the industry is making toward the important milestone.

And First Solar isn't the only narrowing in on it. Yesterday, Cypress Semiconductor CEO T.J. Rodgers told a group of reporters that power from crystalline silicon solar panels will be cheaper than coal power by 2012 when transmissions lines, utility bureaucracy and other factors are added in.

"We are zeroing in on parity," Rodgers said. "We're going to match PG&E (Pacific Gas and Electric) by 2012. Within a couple of years, the price of solar will be just as cheap."

Rodgers invested in SunPower in 2000 when it had 40 employees. He turned the shares over to Cypress later. SunPower now sells billions worth of panels a year.

First Solar, based in Tempe, Ariz., makes thin-film solar panels using cadmium tellurium as the key ingredient to convert sunlight into electricity. It's one of a handful of thin-film companies to be producing panels in high volumes and the only one turning out cad tel panels in volume.

Most of the solar panels today use crystalline silicon, which is able to convert more sunlight than materials used by thin-film makers. Next year, a handful of manufacturers will start making copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) solar cells.