8 years ago
2
Solar power cost down 25% in five months – “There’s no reason why the cost of solar will ever increase again”
On August 11 a bid of US$0.46/W was put forward to build 500MW of solar power in China (a roughly calculated levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) at $0.019/kWh). This past week we saw a bid of $0.023/kWh to build 1.2GW of solar power in Abu Dhabi. This price of $0.023/kWh is almost 25% lower than the $0.0299/kWh was bid in late April for a series of projects also in Abu Dhabi. These extremely aggressive price falls are partially driven by unique situations – a Chinese solar panel production glut and historically low costs of money. But also because of technology as Frank Wouters, the former director of Masdar Clean Energy...
Continue Reading
https://electrek.co
Join the Discussion
This is great news, even though its a continuation of a decade long trend. Parity has been reached in some markets.
Meanwhile, we just had Trump say in tonight's first presidential debate that investing in solar research is 'terrible'.
We needed (and still need) a lot of R&D investment so that the PV industry can fairly compete in the free market. Over the past century, the goverment has subsidized fossil fuels to an incredible degree. Furthermore, the negative externalities have never been priced into the cost of gasoline or coal electricity. Give solar a similar leg up and then watch it out-compete.
Trump bankrupted a casino. His advice on business leaves a little to be desired. When you are given a license to print money and you go broke, you suck at money.