Solar energy project makes advances in costs

At a cost of 7.5 cents a kilowatt-hour it costs less than the 9-cent benchmark for conventional electricity.

clipped from www.latimes.com Sempra Generation, a subsidiary of Sempra Energy in San Diego, just took the wraps off a 10-megawatt solar farm in Nevada. That's small by industry standards, enough to light just 6,400 homes. But the ramifications are potentially huge. A veteran analyst has calculated that the facility can produce power at a cost of 7.5 cents a kilowatt-hour, less than the 9-cent benchmark for conventional electricity. If that's so, it marks a milestone that renewable fans have longed for: "grid parity," in which electricity from the sun, wind or other green sources can meet or beat the price performance of such carbon-based fuels as coal and natural gas.