The meteoric rise of the photovoltaic (PV) industry is an incredible story. In 2013, Google s investments in PV systems totaled about half a billion dollars and Warren Buffet, one of the famous investors, invested $2.5 billion in the world s largest PV system in California. These gigantic investments by major financial players were made only 40 years after the first two terrestrial PV companies, Solarex and Solar Power Corporation, were formed in the USA. Back in 1973, the two companies employed 20 people and produced only 500 watts of PV power. Now, just 40 years later, over a million...

The meteoric expansion of the solar (PV) industry resulted from an incredible reduction in the prices of PV systems first described in the author s earlier book Sun above the Horizon. It began early in the new century and continued in the following decade with an extraordinary upswing. As a result, by the end of 2016, the worldwide PV operational power capacity grew to some 300 GW. Most of this increased capacity, 250 GW, was installed during the years 2010 2016. Suddenly PV started to affect the traditional generation of electricity and helped reduce carbon emissions and other...