Solar Getting Cheaper, But Not Equally
By
John Farrell
January 19, 2012 In January 2011, I plotted the size of state solar markets against their average installed cost and found surprisingly little correlation. When Lawrence Berkeley Labs put out their 2011 version of Tracking the Sun (IV), it was possible to update the chart, which I did in two stages. The first chart simply overlays the 2010 average installed cost on the original chart, with arrows indicating the movement of the prices in most states (I ran out of room in the small market states). It's almost like a rainbow rain of falling solar prices. The next chart updates the original one, plotting average cost against the market size, with data from 2010 for both metrics. California was omitted because its market is orders of magnitude larger than the rest, although it's average installed cost of $6.30/Watt was not the lowest. It seems that the falling cost of solar nationwide has also compressed the cost spread between states, at least for larger markets. To make the chart more legible, I omitted data from some small markets that indicates there's still a lot of variation (an average cost of $10/Watt in Illinois with a solar market size of 16 MW, for example; or $8.50/Watt in Utah, with a total market of 2 MW). That there can still be a difference of more than $4.00 per Watt in average installed costs between states is rather disturbing. It's also problematic that market size doesn't necessarily help drive down costs on small-scale systems – despite being the two largest solar markets, installed costs for small-scale solar (10 kW and smaller) in New Jersey and California are in the middle of the pack. The authors of Tracking the Sun IV do an admirable job of trying to account for the disparity in system costs for small-scale PV, and many of the comments would apply to the solar market more broadly:
Clearly, the growth of solar has led to dramatic declines in the installed cost across the country. But it remains to be seen if market maturity leads to a reduction in the significant price differences between states and to significant price decreases for small-scale solar. This post originally appeared on Energy Self-Reliant States, a resource of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance's New Rules Project. The information and views expressed in this blog post are solely those of the author and not necessarily those of RenewableEnergyWorld.com or the companies that advertise on this Web site and other publications. This blog was posted directly by the author and was not reviewed for accuracy, spelling or grammar. To subscribe or visit go to: http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com |