My guess is that soon buildings will be built with roofs that are designed to get as much sun as possible during the day to make the most out of panels on the roof.

Tracking means mechanical parts that need to constantly move(And thus break over time). They are also much more vulnerable to wind. Don’t think that is viable in other scenarios than in solar farms.

I see several Model S, Leaf, Miev etc every day, and the prices on electric cars have fallen quite a bit – especially after Leaf came out. (The most popular model, followed by Model S). It have happened several times that when there is a new model, it’s priced so that the others have to lower their prices aswell.

The price of electricity also fluctuates troughout the day. It’s most expensive in the morning and afternoon/evening, and cheapest at night. It also varies with weather. With a grid-tied system you sell electricity in the daytime – although the bulk will not be at the peak hours. -Unless it’s pretty hot and people run their AC-units and bring up the price.

A good start would be to check how the picing trough the day and night is where you live.

Guess it would make sense if someone made a small and cheap “test-panel” with logging, that you could mount on your rooftop as a reference to the amount of electricity that can be made at that specific site trough the year. -Although it seems like with the rate of decline in price, the need for analyzing the site will be moot in the near future, unless electricity-prices takes a hike.

– We already are, unless you think Germany and England get loads of sunshine.

At some point it may be cheaper to give up 20% than to track.

– The experts I talk to argue it already is cheaper — assuming you calculate the lifetime costs of the tracking system, not just the initial capital cost.

If this system generates 10 Kwh per day and amortizing the $15,000 cost over 20 years @ 4% that’s $91/month for 300 kwh or $0.30 per kwh or about double my utility rate. If it generates 20 kwh per day then it is $0.15 per kwh close to my utility. I use about 15 kwh per day now and my bill runs about $75 so I’d be “losing” $16/mo ($91-$75) unless I could use a smaller system that cost less or I sold excess to the utility.

Of course the utility bill breaks out generation from transmission & distribution with each being about 8-9 cents/kwh. So if I’m grid tied and net metered I’d need to get the cost down to under 10 cents/kwh to break even with the utility.

I’m just hoping to find a way to compare apples to apples because that is what most people will consider: their cost per month for power. I guess that is too complicated for manufacturers/dealers/installers to calculate without site specific data? So consumers will be left guessing – not a good situation for selling.

$ per kWh is generally used to describe the cost of electricity from a utility and is a consumption measure and depends on factors, such as your location and roof orientation, that even for an identical system with the same $/W installed price will differ across the country.

If you want to purchase a 5000W solar system and it costs $15,000 to buy and install then it cost $3/W installed. That is a very meaningful metric to compare solar system prices and how they have changed over time.

Solar is likely to get very cheap. It’s likely to be so cheap and easy to incorporate that we’ll may see it being installed in places with fairly low insolation.

Even a place that doesn’t get a lot of sunshine may find that they have a big need to power AC as summers heat up.

Or we may see massive amounts installed along the equator and UHVDC lines shipping power toward the poles.

I suspect tracking will get priced off the table. It may make more sense to install panels facing east or west to extend the solar day. At some point it may be cheaper to give up 20% than to track.
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In the US there’s only one small spot that gets a 25% capacity rating. A ‘best guess’ number for the lower 48 is probably 19%.

http://www.wholesalesolar.com/Information-SolarFolder/SunHoursUSMap.html

The total worldwide electricity generation capacity is about 5,000GWp.

http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/IEDIndex3.cfm?tid=2&pid=2&aid=7

After all, it is quite clear that it is the price of solar panels and almost everyone know what they are.

$0.43/watt is the world average spot price for cells, low is $0.34/watt.
Average spot prices for panels are $0.65 (thin-film) and $0.73 (silicon).
http://pvinsights.com/