How Much Solar Panels Price Is Dropping Per Year

Solar panel cost over time.

How much solar panels price is dropping per year.

Writing for ars technica megan geuss examines a new mit study that finds government and private r d spending contributed the most to cost per watt declines for solar panels since 1980. The price of solar has dropped by an incredible amount. The cost of producing solar power is rapidly declining. Back in 1977 the price of solar photovoltaic cells was 77 for just one watt of power.

This spending spurred the low level efficiency improvements that were important for the solar industry on a technical level. The easiest way to calculate the average cost of solar panels is to look at its price in dollars per watt w which is relatively consistent across the united states. The cost has generally been following swanson s law which states that the price of solar drops by 20 for every doubling of shipped product. It now costs 50 to produce one megawatt hour of solar power according to a new analysis.

Coal on the other hand costs 102 per megawatt. There s evidence that solar prices are continuing to fall. Solar installers too can deploy solar pv across the united states more efficiently now than they could ten years ago. Prices featured in quotes to homeowners on the energysage solar marketplace continue to fall.

He predicts that the price of constructing solar power technology will decrease by 4 4 percent each year meaning that by 2022 the price of projects will have dropped by 27 percent.