Comments on: Solar Graph Porn

By: derekbolton

derekbolton — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 00:56:00 +0000

Apart from the first few datapoints, it’s a remarkably good fit to a decline of 20%pa, right up to now. But I’m not sure whether these numbers are in today’s Euros or the actual numeric prices at the time. If the latter, the real decline is steeper.

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 04:22:00 +0000

$2/watt is the goal that PBO and Secretary Chu have set. Through Department of Energy programs multiple innovative programs are being funded and significant prizes established for the first three companies to break the $2/watt threshold.

“Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the SunShot Prize aims to spur low-cost rooftop solar installations across the nation. This competition offers a total of up to $10 million in cash awards to the first three teams that repeatedly demonstrate an average of $1 per watt (W) for non-hardware costs such as permitting, interconnection, and inspection.”
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/sunshot/prize.html

When I first heard about the contest I thought it would be years before any payout. Now that we’re approaching $3/watt I can see it happening in the next 2-3 years.

By: Ronald Brak

Ronald Brak — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 03:52:00 +0000

There is no particular reason why other countries can’t also install solar for $2 a watt with a little lead time. As many countries have lower labour costs than Germany they should be able to do it for less. This means there is no real reason point of use solar can’t be cheaper than grid electricity for most of the world’s people. The problem of how to cheaply produce low emission electricity during the day has been solved. It’s just a matter of deployment.

By: anderlan

anderlan — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 15:52:00 +0000

Thank you for doing the work the author should have done, or clearly explaining things (also the job of the blog article author). I was very amazed for a moment that I could put up 100kW of panels for $3000!!!

By: FromOz

FromOz — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 15:39:00 +0000

“prices are for 100 kWp solar power plants”

Please put in a bit more effort. Nowhere does the original article say that these are the prices for 100 kWp plants. One minute of calculation and reflection should have made you realise that that couldn’t be the case. As the article clearly states, these are prices per kWp for plants up to 100 kWp.

A bit more reluctance to grope for the word “porn” might also help the quality of your reporting.