In conjunction with Solar Power International, the Dept. of Energy has formally announced today that the SunShot 2020 goal of 6 cents/kwh for the average price of electricity from utility scale solar PV has been achieved, mostly through reduction in costs of PV hardware. With 3 years to go, residential and commercial solar PV systems are 86% and 89% towards achieving their year 2020 electricity price targets.
While new goals are also being set for 2030, the Dept. of Energy has recently had a focused effort on soft cost reduction. According to modeling by the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL), Soft costs currently account for 41% of the cost for utility-scale solar PV systems, 59% of the cost for commercial systems, and 68% of the cost for residential systems. Dept. of Energy State Energy Strategies projects such as FAASSTeR are on the forefront of helping to achieve future soft cost reductions.
For a current detailed analysis of solar PV costs, see the NREL report, “U.S. Solar Photovoltaic System Cost Benchmark: Q1 2017”, also released today.
The modeled trend of solar PV soft costs, from the NREL report, are shown below:
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.