U.S. photovoltaic generation costs continue to decline

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley, California, USA) found in its latest report released in the “Tracking the Sun” series that the cost of installed solar PV installations in the United States continues to decline.

“Tracking the Sun 5,” a historical summary of PV installation prices in the United States from 1998 to 2011, found that the cost of the US PV system in 2011 dropped to US$4.9-6.1 per watt. The report also found that 'soft costs' may be extra reduced.

“This report just shows how solar photovoltaic power generation is developing in the United States and what else we can do,” said Adam Browning, executive director of the Vote Solar Initiative. “In the face of economic downturns, political election chaos and the deep-rooted dilemma of the electricity market, solar power It is quietly emerging from adversity and reshaping the energy market. This is amazing!"

The report observes price trends from multiple perspectives

The report comes from project-level data on approximately 150,000 residential, commercial, and utility PV systems, accounting for 76% of all grid-connected installations in the US in 2011. Comparisons have been made of changes in price trends from various perspectives, including the passage of time, system size, customer systems or third-party systems, different countries, and other factors.

Component prices fall faster than BOS

Prices fell by an average of 5-7% per year from 12 U.S. dollars per watt in 1998, especially since 2009. From 2010 to 2011, prices fell by about 11-14%, and dropped by another 3-7% in the first half of 2012. The report believes that the main reason for the recent price decline is the declining component prices, which dropped by US$2.1 per watt from 2008 to 2011. Non-module costs have also dropped by 30% from 1998 to 2011, but this rate of decline has not been comparable to module prices.