Solar Cost Increasingly Beating The Market

Solar power cost down 25% in five months – “There’s no reason why the cost of solar will ever increase again”

John Fitzgerald Weaver, September 26, 2016 (Electrek)

“On August 11 a bid of US$0.46/W was put forward to build 500MW of solar power in China (a roughly calculated levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) at $0.019/kWh). This past week we saw a bid of $0.023/kWh to build 1.2GW of solar power in Abu Dhabi…almost 25% lower than the $0.0299/kWh was bid in late April for a series of projects also in Abu Dhabi. These extremely aggressive price falls are partially driven by unique situations – a Chinese solar panel production glut and historically low costs of money. But also because of technology…The price drop in solar panels from the first quarter through the third quarter of this year is probably the greatest driver…Anecdotally, deliveries of Tier 1 solar panels in 1MW volume to the northeast USA have fallen from ~$0.60-65/W to ~$0.45/W – price declines of 25-30%...Other locations have seen price falls just as significant. A Nevada USA 100MW solar project was recently approved delivering electricity at $0.04/kWh. Chile set temporary records at $0.0291/kWh. And now we see India’s ongoing, and upward ramping, solar power boom…Greentech Media made a now quaint seeming prediction that solar costs would fall “40% by 2020” in September of 2015 – little did they know it might happen before the end of 2016…” click here for more

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