While a majority of the world's current electricity supply is generated from fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas, these traditional energy sources face a number of challenges including rising prices, security concerns over dependence on imports from a limited number of countries which have significant fossil fuel supplies, and growing environmental concerns over the climate change risks associated with power generation using fossil fuels.

As a result of these and other challenges facing traditional energy sources, governments, businesses and consumers are increasingly supporting the development of alternative energy sources and new technologies for electricity generation. Renewable energy sources such as solar, biomass, geothermal, hydroelectric and wind power generation have emerged as potential alternatives which address some of these concerns. As opposed to fossil fuels, which draw on finite resources that may eventually become too expensive to retrieve, renewable energy sources are generally unlimited in availability.

Solar energy production does not require fossil fuels and is therefore less dependent on this limited and expensive natural resource. Although there is variability in the amount and timing of sunlight over the day, season and year, a properly sized and configured system can be designed to be highly reliable while providing long-term, fixed price electricity supply.