Let's be honest; solar photovolataics are inefficient, highly prone to local weather conditions and above all, very expensive. However there is a school of thought that believes that in new buildings, i.e. where the cost of scaffolding, and erecting a roof are already unavoidable factors in the total cost of a new home, this is where solar pv can make start to make commercial sense.

So news that a subsidiary of Sunpower is building homes with ready-integrated solar power merits closer examination. Is this a trend we are likely to see expand?

If you are spending $400,000 on a new house, with $20,000 included in the price for 2 kilowatts of solar power, this will probably not strike the housebuyer as a big deal. So the consumer will be indifferent to positive. But why as a developer would you do it?

Some solar lobbyists believe that building regulations should be passed to demand solar power on all new homes. I disagree. Solar power must make it on economic and environmental merit, not on government regulation. The danger is with these regulations is that the solar industry will not be forced to find technologies that drastically lower solar costs as they will have a free supply of capital from the deployment of existing technology. Arguably, this has already happened and is together with high silicon prices, why solar costs have not fallen the last few years.