Please define "Grid Parity"! Currently in the Southern California Edison service area, major portions of Southern California, a residential PV system is not able to achieve a 25 year payback. That is NOT "Grid Parity".
And with SCE and the CEC (California Energy Commission) rapidly decreasing the incentives for PV the payback period is moving even further away from achieving grid parity.
To achieve grid parity, aka less than a five-year payback, we need to see residential PV systems installed at a price of $2.50 W AC, CEC rated net inverter output. DC Watts and Peak DC Watts are meaningless. Our grid runs on AC.
At the 2011 Cleantech Forum in San Francisco, John Denniston, a partner at Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield, and Byers, says innovation in clean technology has helped drive strong growth in both solar and wind over the last five years.
“Some geographies are at grid parity: in Italy, in some parts of California,” he said. “In the coming 12, 24, 36 months, we’ll be at grid parity in other geographies due to innovation and economies of scale. Countries like Spain and Japan. States like New York, New Jersey, Florida, Arizona, Texas.
“We are coming into grid parity in solar PV, and at that point, this already very large industry will be poised for a very significant take-off.”
