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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;-jeffB, post: 3162803, member: 27832&quot;]Perhaps that&#039;s true today, but the price of PV panels is continuing to plummet. The price of thermal generation equipment, and tracking mechanisms for mirrors, isn&#039;t likely to follow the semiconductor-manufacturing curve.</p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;m surprised that maintenance would be cheaper for solar-concentration than for PV. Solar-concentration has <i>tons</i> of moving parts, some operating at high temperatures and pressures. If something goes wrong in the central receiver, you&#039;ve got to take down the entire installation to fix it.</p><p><br /></p><p>As [USER=75637]@Speedbump[/USER] pointed out, it&#039;s harder to find sites for solar-concentration plants. PV panels can go on top of almost <i>anything</i>, at small or large scales. I think eventually PV roofing will be the rule rather than the exception, at least in developed nations.</p><p><br /></p><p>I don&#039;t completely agree with [USER=75637]@Speedbump[/USER]&#039;s point about distributed generation improving grid stability and reliability. It can be harder to manage a two-way distribution/collection grid than one with a small set of producers and a vast majority of consumers. The real problems with stability come from cost-cutting, and to the extent that distributed generation cuts into power companies&#039; dominance in generation, it&#039;ll actually make the cost-cutting pressure <i>worse</i>. To me, that&#039;s an argument in favor of self-sufficiency (household generation and storage); that choice isn&#039;t <i>necessarily</i> the best for society at large, but if the price is right, it&#039;s best for the individual homeowner.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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