Hesitant Texas is getting burned on solar power, experts assert
By Vicki Vaughan, San Antonio Express-News /Oct 13, 2007
Source: Star Telegram.com
http://www.star-telegram.com/business/story/266770.html
Texas has been a leader in energy for 100 years, but the state isn’t moving forward quickly enough to develop solar energy, two experts said Thursday. “California, New Jersey, Colorado and Pennsylvania are moving more quickly than Texas” in developing solar power, said Bruce Kellison, associate director of the IC2 Institute, a think tank at the University of Texas at Austin devoted to fostering entrepreneurship and job creation. “Greater development of solar power can bolster Texas’ weakening semiconductor and materials industries” and create jobs, Kellison said.
Texas would gain as many as 123,000 net jobs in areas such as construction, transportation and electricity generation by 2020 if the state expands its requirements for greater use of renewable energy, Kellison said. A key to expanding solar energy is building up the state’s photovoltaic industry, he said. Photovoltaic devices convert sunlight into electricity. Texas receives more sunlight than any other state in the country.
“Why has New Jersey become one of the nation’s largest developers of photovoltaic products?” Kellison said. “We need to create a research pipeline and create economic incentives” for developing solar-related products, he said. Joel Serface, director of the Clean Energy Incubator, took up the same theme at the gathering, sponsored by Solar San Antonio, Bexar County, the city and Austin-based Meridian Energy Systems.
“Texas is losing its leadership position,” Serface said. “While Texas was sleeping and not investing, Japan and Germany became world leaders in solar,” said Serface, whose Clean Energy Incubator’s mission is to launch and develop renewable-energy technologies. Japan and Germany each had almost three times as much installed photovoltaic power as the U.S. at the end of 2005, according to the International Energy Agency.
Serface said the challenge for solar is reducing its cost. Solar panels cost about $300 a watt. “That’s not commercially viable,” he said. But as larger plants manufacturing panels come online, “we’ll see a precipitous drop in prices,” Serface said.