| 19.09.2014: According to three new reports from the US Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), the costs of small and large-scale solar power systems declined considerably in the US in 2013, confirming the downward trend registered by LBNL’s experts over the five previous years. According to the report »Utility-Scale Solar 2013,« which examined data collected from CSP, CPV and PV projects over 5 MW installed in the US, installed project prices, especially those of PV plants, have declined by more than one third since the 2007-2009 period, from $5.8 per W to $3.7 per W in 2013. The report, however, stresses that the strongest decline was registered in 2012, when the average price reached $3.8 per W. This drop was registered mainly for PV projects relying on crystalline silicon solar modules, according to the report. This strong cost reduction also led to a decrease of the price of electricity sold to utilities under PPAs, which dropped 70% since 2008 to $50 per MWh in 2013. The second report, entitled »Tracking the Sun II,« provides a historical summary of the installed price of PV in the US from 1998 to 2013, with partial data for the first half of 2014. The study, which is based on data collected from 300,000 residential, commercial and large-scale PV systems installed in 33 states, representing 80% of the US installed PV capacity at the end of 2013, found that installed prices kept falling in 2013, declining by $0.7 per W year-on-year, or by 12% to 15% depending on the system size. PV projects up to 10 kW had an average price of $4.7 per W, while projects between 10 and 100 kW and projects over 100 kW had a price of $4.3 per W and $3.9 per W, respectively. Also in the first half of 2014, installed prices kept declining by $0.2 per W to $0.5 per W, depending on the system size. In a third report, entitled »How Much Do Local Regulations Matter?,« LBNL’s experts showed how differences in local permitting and other regulatory procedures can be a decisive factor in PV installation costs. © PHOTON http://emp.lbl.gov/sites/all/files/LBNL_Utility-Scale_Solar_2013_report.pdf |
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