Solar power moves a step closer to parity

This new breakthrough pricing, when coupled with federal tax credits and other local initiatives such as the California Solar Initiative, brings solar photovoltaic power within the realm of grid parity.

Fresco Solar is an engineering, procurement and construction company based in Morgan Hill, California. The company's CEO, Sean Kenny, states that "the price of polysilicon has been falling for well over a year and yet new capacity continues to come on stream. The same is true for inverters and all the commodities used in balance of plant components, such as copper, steel and aluminum. This, coupled with our proprietary designs, allows us to offer never before seen prices for turnkey solar plants."

The company made an announcement in advance of Intersolar North America trade show at the Moscone West Center in San Francisco from July 14 to July 16.

"We're seeing a major shift from residential and commercial projects to municipal and utility scale ones, caused on the one hand by the anemic state of the U.S. economy and on the other by the flow of stimulus funding," says Kenny. "We and our partners have been working hard to position ourselves to take advantage of the new market conditions."

Kenny was previously an executive at Apple, whose responsibilities included the procurement of memory chips and other silicon. He is also a General Electric factory trained power station start-up engineer and has held many executive roles in Silicon Valley high-tech companies.

The price of $2.95 per watt, or $2,950,000 for a one megawatt array is based on the DC STC size of the system. It excludes sales and use taxes, local permits and fees and any land development costs. It includes delivery, installation and testing of the racking, photovoltaic panels and inverters and associated foundations and wiring.