Solar Energy Sees Eye-Popping Price Drops

[Dubious]

Solar electricity's price tag has plummeted 70 percent, says a new report, as SolarCity rolls out a low-cost, super-efficient panel.

SolarCity workers install photovoltaic panels on a California home. The company says it has pioneered a new level of efficiency with its latest product.


PHOTOGRAPH BY J. EMILIO FLORES, THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX
By Christina Nunez, National Geographic
PUBLISHED FRI OCT 02 09:00:05 EDT 2015


If only the same could be said of electric bills. The price of U.S. solar power has dropped a whopping 70 percent since 2009, even as panels get smarter.

The figure, cited in a report this week from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, coincides with SolarCity’sdebutFriday of what it calls the world's most efficient rooftop solar panel. The largest residential solar installer in the U.S. says its module can produce 38 percent more power than a standard one, yet costs less to produce.

Not bad for an industry that had no large-scale U.S. presence just a decade ago. Photovoltaic panels currently contribute only about 1 percent of all electricity, but lower costs are helping fuel the expansion of large, utility-size projects.

As historic UN climate talks near, solar's latest strides are key in the worldwide race to slash carbon emissions by paring back dependence on fossil fuels. (See surprising countries where wind and solar are booming.)

"It is quite remarkable and exciting when you have this amount of growth, and an industry goes from basically being a hobby to a mainstream industry," says Peter Rive, SolarCity's co-founder and chief technology officer. (Rive's cousin and SolarCity's chairman, Elon Musk, is also seeking to boost solar's appeal to utilities with his recently launched Tesla battery system.)

The company's new panel "takes solar a step further to be a cheaper energy source without requiring federal incentives such as the investment tax credit," Rive says.

That credit currently returns 30 percent of a solar system's cost to the buyer. Its looming expiration at the end of next year has lent urgency to the industry's efforts to bring down prices. The Berkeley Lab report predicts a "frenzied pace of construction over the next 15 months."

Contracts to buy power from large-scale solar projects average 5 cents per kilowatt hour, according to the report, while electricity prices on the wholesale market run from 3 cents to 6 cents per kilowatt hour.

The plunging cost of solar hasn't translated to lower electric bills so far: In most regions—even ones with big solar plants—people are paying a bit more for power than they did a few years ago, because many different factors go into determining retail electricity rates. Rather, the trend means more of that power might be coming from carbon-free sources that are less subject to the price shocks of fossil fuels.

While it's difficult to make a direct cost comparison between new solar projects and existing fossil fuel power plants, says report co-author Mark Bolinger, solar is getting to a point where it can compete with coal and natural gas for electricity in some places.

"Just a few years ago, that was much more of a stretch," he says.

The falling price of power from large-scale solar projects reflects the lower cost of building them. The report notes that cost fell by more than 50 percent between 2009 and 2014. At the same time, solar farms have seen a "notable improvement" in how much power they put out, thanks to smarter siting and better technology.

SolarCity is aiming to apply its own gains in efficiency and cost to the residential market when it begins production at its 1-gigawatt facility in Buffalo, New York, in early 2017. Its new rooftop panel, which earned a rating of 22.04 percent efficiency in a third-party certification test, surpasses an earlier record set by SunPower, which has a high-efficiency model rated at 21.5 percent.

Another trend Bolinger called "encouraging": Solar's reach is expanding. Most development has been centered in the Southwest, but Bolinger says big solar power contracts are cropping up in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, and Georgia—states that "haven't seen much solar development in the past to speak of."

Of course, prices won't keep tumbling so steeply in the years ahead. What we might see instead, Bolinger says, is that the market for solar will just continue to expand.

The story is part of a special series that explores energy issues. For more, visit The Great Energy Challenge.

On Twitter: Follow Christina Nunez and get more environment and energy coverage at NatGeoEnergy.


Solar Energy Sees Eye-Popping Price Drops

And what is Pakistan producing?

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Yep, definitely a push by SolarCity to get people to put panels up on their rooves. Panels popping up here and there. Still a little too bulky for my taste.

I'd prefer Solar Shingles: Renewable Energy Solution With Curb Appeal | CleanTechnica

 

[Indus Falcon]

We need to tap wind power, wave energy, as well as concentrated solar. There needs to be a new dept or cell directly under the PM who moves & does things on a war footing.

See the PDF & video, it makes a lot of sense to a place like Pakistan. Water & Electricity via a simple wind turbine.

http://www.eolewater.com/assets/files/PDF/Specification Sheet WMS1000 WT light.pdf

 

[Asif Durrani]

Without a tariff guarantee from the National grid, large-scale investment in solar energy won't happen. Pakistan could also consider a Carbon Tax to offset the cost of providing incentives to green and renewable energy.

 

[xyxmt]

So the solar energy prices are dropping, electricity prices for consumer are not. As I understand the home owner must sell Solar power to distribution company (price dropped there) but they get the power from dist company at the same expensive rates.

 

[anon45]

So the solar energy prices are dropping, electricity prices for consumer are not. As I understand the home owner must sell Solar power to distribution company (price dropped there) but they get the power from dist company at the same expensive rates.

No, it depends on your plan, and the rate will usually be cheaper by a significant margin.

Of course if you buy it outright then you don't really pay for electricity at all (negligible amount)

Ill probably go solar in two years, just waiting for the new solar city panel to come out.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

No, it depends on your plan, and the rate will usually be cheaper by a significant margin.

Of course if you buy it outright then you don't really pay for electricity at all (negligible amount)

Ill probably go solar in two years, just waiting for the new solar city panel to come out.

It also depends upon your geographic latitude. I'm up north so I'm getting less direct sun than say somebody in Miami.
So I may need far much square footage to equal them.

So if you are in the south it may make more sense.

 

[anon45]

It also depends upon your geographic latitude. I'm up north so I'm getting less direct sun than say somebody in Miami.
So I may need far much square footage to equal them.

So if you are in the south it may make more sense.

Plenty of sun in LA

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Solar electricity's price tag has plummeted 70 percent, says a new report, as SolarCity rolls out a low-cost, super-efficient panel.

heh! Just got a personalized letter in the mail saying zero upfront costs. Only pay when it produces.
I'll hold off.

 

[Schutz]

Solar power is great but like you, its so ugly and bulky. A good few of the houses near mine have them, the biggest house opposite mine got some installed a few weeks back, they have over 20 medium sized panels on their roof, a proper eyesaw.

 

[tranquilium]

So the solar energy prices are dropping, electricity prices for consumer are not. As I understand the home owner must sell Solar power to distribution company (price dropped there) but they get the power from dist company at the same expensive rates.

That's normal. Electricity is not a form of energy we can efficiently store in bulk. This means generated power must be (almost) instantly consumed by a distant consumer.

In certain US regions, what happens is something called a power pool. This means the local grid and generation point are interconnected together. The cost of the electricity produced is constantly shifting at each location and as each part of the nation requests power, the coordination people will switch the lowest cost one to the area. So it is perfectly normal for a custom in one part of the country using power produced in another-----distance electricity doesn't necessarily means more expensive. Also country like US or China has a up-to-date infrastructure, the long distance electricity transmission loss is only about 6%, which means the price increase due to distance is minor, especially for the group sharing the same pool.

Now, the base price is another matter entirely. Keep in mind in heavily industrialized countries, it is pretty much the normal for the government will give set heavy subsidiaries to the electricity price, because it is the basis of all industrial operation. So the price you see is a price that already down through several increases and decreases from the production price. Hence why reduced solar price isn't going to have that much of an drastic impact in the immediate short term. (That and solar production is still small in a lot of countries and there is the whole issue with actual production vs installed capacity)

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

That's normal. Electricity is not a form of energy we can efficiently store in bulk. This means generated power must be (almost) instantly consumed by a distant consumer.

In certain US regions, what happens is something called a power pool. This means the local grid and generation point are interconnected together. The cost of the electricity produced is constantly shifting at each location and as each part of the nation requests power, the coordination people will switch the lowest cost one to the area. So it is perfectly normal for a custom in one part of the country using power produced in another-----distance electricity doesn't necessarily means more expensive. Also country like US or China has a up-to-date infrastructure, the long distance electricity transmission loss is only about 6%, which means the price increase due to distance is minor, especially for the group sharing the same pool.

Now, the base price is another matter entirely. Keep in mind in heavily industrialized countries, it is pretty much the normal for the government will give set heavy subsidiaries to the electricity price, because it is the basis of all industrial operation. So the price you see is a price that already down through several increases and decreases from the production price. Hence why reduced solar price isn't going to have that much of an drastic impact in the immediate short term. (That and solar production is still small in a lot of countries and there is the whole issue with actual production vs installed capacity)

Oh I'm sure they offer:
Tesla Powerwall - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

But I'm sure the payback time is completely ridiculous. This is more for somebody who lives off the grid/super paranoid/has extra money to burn/needs continuous power.