Today Tony Hayward, BP’s (British Petroleum) chief executive officer at a conference in California said, "Solar power will not be able to compete with conventional energy until there is a breakthrough in the technology." He added "It is not going to make the transition to be competitive with more conventional power, the gap is too big."
Over the last 6 months BP Solar division has been scaling down, closing solar panel factories all over the world, an indicator that the company is moving away from solar energy towards oil and gas.
In my opinion, BP's CEO is selling solar power technology short because of the following reasons:
- electric rates are'nt going to get cheaper in the future
- Investment is flowing in the solar industry, technology is improving faster than ever
- Cost per watt of solar panels are dropping like a rock due to the over supply of solar panels
- Financial innovations that remove the upfront of going solar, for example paying for solar through property taxes.
- increased government support
- carbon cap and trade regulations
