Solar panels voted Product of 2009

Solar panels have been named Product of 2009 by the readers of De Standaard newspaper. The panels beat four other contenders for the title, including Zumba, a form of fitness exercise; baby elephant Kai-Mook, whose gestation and birth was the subject of an unprecedented marketing campaign by the Leuvenbased Boondoggle agency; SMS parking; and Twitter. Previous winners have included the iPod, the portable GPS and Barack Obama.

Solar panels, which earned 34% of the votes, were popular in 2009 in practice as well as in theory. The demand for solar power – boosted by government subsidies – was so great that suppliers could not keep up, and the year ended with waiting lists of disappointed customers who will now see their subsidy drop from €450 per 1,000 kWh to only €350. However, the federation of suppliers, BelPV, has estimated that economies of scale in the industry will see a 20% cut in prices in the course of 2010. In addition, the time it takes a solar panel installation to recoup its own cost will go down from 6.8 years to 4.8 years, BelPV said.

(January 6, 2010)