About Photovoltaic in 2014: Grid Parity and self-consumption

The term Grid Parity is used talking about PV more and more often: It represents the price condition of the electricity from alternative energy sources that is equivalent to that one of most common energy from fossil fuels.

Until now, we have been able to take advantage of the well-known Energy Bill, which provided high incentives for the electricity production from renewable sources, such as the installation of a photovoltaic system. It has brought a real gain for this operation despite the cost of energy produced was higher than energy from conventional systems.

Now, however, we can make a projection in a year and discover, with great pleasure, that the remarkable cost reduction that is affecting the whole industrial chain of the photovoltaic market, will ensure the so-called grid parity. So thanks to these changes, there is an important new tendency: we do not have just gain on investment, but real savings on our electricity bill.

According to a Deutsche Bank report, we can say that during 2013, the Mediterranean area and in particular the south of Italy, would be in a state of Grid Parity, if only the usage patterns of electrical equipment housing will be exchanged. With the right actions , within 2020, we could end up with an overall coverage of the demand for electricity from renewable sources around 7-11% (approximately 45GW of installed capacity).

The Deutsche Bank report also highlights another important projection according to which, by 2014, it would even be possible to move to a model of self-sustainability, and therefore Grid Parity, totally abandoning the dependence on government incentives for the installation of solar panels or other ones, to produce renewable energy.