According to [1] photovoltaic energy might be competitive in Germany by 2012/2013 in regions with a lot of sunshine and by 2016 "in regions with less intensive sunshine." (I'm not sure whether "less intensive" means average.) These numbers assume consumer prices and no subsidies. For industry users competitiveness is expected by 2019.

Hawaii: already competitive (2009), California: 2011 (assuming 3kW plants)

Reuters [2] writes that "very sunny countries could reach that breakeven in five years[2012] or so, and even cloudy Britain by 2020."

The breakeven is called Grid Parity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_parity

[1] http://www.wm.baden-wuerttemberg.de/fm7/1106/Endbericht%20Br... (German, 2009, this is the report cited by taz.de)

[2] http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/10/19/environment-solar-... (2007)

This doesn't answer his question, but anyway: it depends on how you account for things. When you take into account the production cost and materials needed for PV, electricity from them is not a sustainable energy source in any non-marketing meaning of the word.

Taz seems to be a rather leftist newspaper, wouldn't take it at face value.

Oh, the fear of 'leftist' newspapers.

For the US, pretty much every newspaper in Germany is leftist.

There are citing a study by the bank "Landesbank BW". You can find the same study in other media mentioned.

A bank is usually very reputable in calculating economics.

You betcha ;-) Even for european standards this is leftist. They do have good articles though as it is usual for ideologists only on topics where the ideology doesn't already provides the answers.

Also, the mentioned bank is a state bank. Usually not the moste creditable ones. Especially not on issues that include subsidies.

I think he's mistaken is saying that it'll only come from PV; it's for all forms of 'sustainable' energy (I myself wouldn't count PV under that, but the popular opinion does so I'm including it here).

So it's including geothermal, air heat pumps, zero energy use for residential heating (high insulation and heat recuperation in ventilation systems), etc.