For low-temperature applications, solar thermal currently offers similar or better performance than the conventional alternatives, in many cases. For commercial space heating, solar air technologies are currently being marketed in the North American market at rates that are lower than heating oil and other conventional fuels. At present, in most cases, solar thermal technologies do not compete with the market rate for natural gas, but in many other applications beyond natural gas there are a number of different comparable applications.
For the generation of electricity, again, there are a number of different applications where, on a large scale, the price of electricity can be close to 35¢ or 40¢ per kilowatt hour, which would be comparable to some new fossil fuel builds, if externalities were included. There are also remote applications, where they do not have access to the grid, where solar electricity would be comparable to the conventional alternatives.