Reply #32: Well here's a graphic from solar buzz for 2006. [View All]

[NNadir]

According to the figure on the top, in 2006, the world installation of solar roofs amounted to 1744 Mega"watts."

This of course is what the solar PV cells peak power is at noon on a perfectly bright sunny day. The capacity utilization of solar is between 20% and 25% at best. Thus the world capacity represents something like a 500 MWe gas plant that runs at baseload.

In 2006 the world was building 10,657 MWe of new natural gas fired electricity plants.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epat2p4.html