A variety of factors including declining component costs, increased competition, lower overheads and better system configurations is driving solar PV systems costs ever lower, particularly for utility-scale projects, according to the U.S. Department of Energys National Renewable Energy Laboratories (NREL).
NRELs U.S. Solar Photovoltaic System Cost Benchmark Q1 2016 shows costs for a typical 5.6 kW-DC residential PV system at $2.93 per watt, and $2.13 per watt for a 200 kW commercial system. For utility-scale PV, the authors gave a figure of $1.42 per watt for a 100 MW fixed-tilt system, and $1.49 per watt for a 100 MW system with single-axis tracking.
This represents 6% and 4% annual cost reductions for residential and C&I PV systems, but a stunning 20% reduction in costs for fixed-tilt utility-scale systems. NREL notes that while falling component costs are a factor, increased competition, lower installer and developer overheads, improved labor productivity, and optimized system configurations also contributed, particularly for EPC firms building commercial and utility-scale projects…
for the rest of this article (with charts), please see the pv magazine USA website.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
Popular content
Share
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.