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Price of Solar Has Dropped 50% in Last 16 Months (1 Viewer)

cstu

cstu

Footballguy
Dubai received bid of $.0299/kWh for 800MW of solar power. This price represents the lowest yet recorded for solar power (and might not represent the end of the price drops…).


Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) has received 5 bids from international organisations for the third phase of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park, said HE Saeed Mohammed AlTayer, MD & CEO of DEWA. The lowest recorded bid at the opening of the envelopes was US 2.99 cents per kilowatt hour. The next step in the bidding process will review the technical and commercial aspects of the bids to select the best one.



In the USA, in 2014 and with incentives, utility scale solar projects averaged $.05/kWh. On this bid alone, five companies bid below $.045/kW – without subsidies!

In 2015, we saw Dubai sign a deal at a fixed rate of $0.0584 cents over 25 years with no incentives. In the summer of 2015 Autin, TX received almost 1,300MW`of bids at under $.04/kWh. Shortly afterwards, we saw Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s NV Energy agreed to pay $.0387/kWh for power from a 100-megawatt project that First Solar Inc. is developing. Lastly, just this month Enel Green power signed contracts for $.036/kWh in in Mexico and $.03/kWh in Morroco.

The price per kWh just fell 50% – and it did it in less than sixteen months.
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We're also two years away from solar reaching price parity with other sources of electricity (at least in sunny areas):

The According to the Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy,


As of November 2015, four years into the decade-long SunShot Initiative, the solar industry is about 70% of the way to achieving SunShot’s cost target of $0.06 per kilowatt-hour for utility-scale PV (based on 2010 baseline figures).



The price the SunShot Initiative wants is without incentives. It’s at this price that analysts believe utility scale solar power would be competitively priced, at grid parity, with other sources of electricity in the USA. Warren Buffet’s $.0387/kWh would potentially turn into about $.07/kWh if we backed out the 30% Federal Tax Credit and 60% depreciation in Year One. With solar power falling about 10% a year – Warren Buffet should be under $.06/kWh, no incentives, by 2018. Of course, not all installations are going to be built in the dry, sunny Nevada desert with customer credit scores as pristine as Warren Buffet (other than Dubai, of course).
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James Daulton said:
Solar panels popping up in houses all over my hood.  And I'm in freaking Maryland.
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I had a quote about a year ago from Vivint Solar. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't as much of a savings as I thought it would be. If the prices keep dropping, I can definitely see myself jumping in. There's about 150 houses in my neighborhood, I'd say there's 5-10 houses with solar power so far.

 
msommer said:
More solar, more wind, more hydrogen, more batteries. And :bye:  fossil fuels
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Yeah, you know the environmental footprint it takes to make and dispose of those batteries is huge right?  Wind is nothing more than a boutique energy source as well.

 
msommer said:
Sorry to burst your bubble

Is 42% market share really a boutique?

As for batteries - Get on the wave of new tech, much cleaner than your little energizer batteries you've been throwing in the trash for most of your life
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42% share in DENMARK?!? :lmao:

I guess we'll start with your yard and neighborhood with all the windmills and work our way out from there.  Or is this one of those NIMBY things that you progressives are so fond of?

Note: United States is ~228 times bigger than Denmark. Denmark is approximately 43,094 sq km, while United States is approximately 9,826,675 sq km.

 
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joffer said:
Starting to look into this a little more.  I'm going to get a couple of quotes next weeks and run some numbers. 

If Max thinks its a waste of time, it must have some merit.
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Also check and see if there are any co-ops in your area. There's even one here in the fairly remote area I live in. I think the deal is that, for every 25 houses that sign up, the user gets an additional 20% off.

 
James Daulton said:
Has anyone stopped and thought about the negative impact this will have on Big Oil?
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Big Oil should have been out in front of this decades ago. Instead, they stonewalled, to their - and everyone else's - detriment. Same thing the auto industry has done; same thing the record industry did. 

 
Big issue looming for renewable energy companies and banks as many of these farms were financed years ago with the expectation that they would be generating revenue at those higher price points for decades...only to have the price crater a few years in. I've seen a couple wind farms where the cost of maintenance on the turbines is exceeding the revenue they are generating. This is great for consumers and the planet until the farms shut down when no one will keep financing them. 

 
Uruk-Hai said:
Big Oil should have been out in front of this decades ago. Instead, they stonewalled, to their - and everyone else's - detriment. Same thing the auto industry has done; same thing the record industry did. 
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Yep. Entrenched industries rarely use their considerable resources (financial, human, intellectual) to innovate away from their cash cow. Instead they use the same to swat down newer players. 

 
MaxThreshold said:
42% share in DENMARK?!? :lmao:

I guess we'll start with your yard and neighborhood with all the windmills and work our way out from there.  Or is this one of those NIMBY things that you progressives are so fond of?

Note: United States is ~228 times bigger than Denmark. Denmark is approximately 43,094 sq km, while United States is approximately 9,826,675 sq km.
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1.   Why is it funny that Denmark has a 42% share?

2.  I'm fine with windmills in my neighborhood, although it isn't a great location.   We have a lot of windmills in the state, primarily in the gorge and on the eastern side of the cascades, and I think that's great as well.

3.  In what way is it relevant that Denmark is tiny compared to the United States?

 
eoMMan said:
Related to this, SunEdison has really fell on hard times.
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SolarCity (Elon Musk's solar energy business) appears to be floundering.  NY state invested $750 million in the company with various tax breaks, and the company promised to bring nearly 1,500 jobs to Buffalo at what would be the largest solar panel manufacturing facility in the western hemisphere.  The company promised to create 5,000 jobs total in NY state.  They have since revised their Buffalo job estimate to 500 manufacturing jobs and nearly 1,000 of ????  Now it sounds like Tesla is going to acquire SolarCity, no idea what that entails.

Their stock price has fallen from 51.75 to 23.66 in the past year.

 
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When you see numbers like $0.06 per kWhr for the cost of solar, they're talking about the cost from a utility that's running off of solar correct?  Compared to the $0.12 to $0.14 for what standard utilities are charging.

That's interesting and all, but has anyone seen any numbers recently about the $/Watt cost for the panels and residential installation?  I've seen anywhere from $3-$4 per watt for the panels, and maybe another $1-$2 for the labor, the inverter, cables, etc.  $4-$5 per watt for a 7-8kW system doesn't sound too bad with the 30% tax credit.

 
joffer said:
When you see numbers like $0.06 per kWhr for the cost of solar, they're talking about the cost from a utility that's running off of solar correct?  Compared to the $0.12 to $0.14 for what standard utilities are charging.

That's interesting and all, but has anyone seen any numbers recently about the $/Watt cost for the panels and residential installation?  I've seen anywhere from $3-$4 per watt for the panels, and maybe another $1-$2 for the labor, the inverter, cables, etc.  $4-$5 per watt for a 7-8kW system doesn't sound too bad with the 30% tax credit.
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So what'st the break even time frame ?

 
I know people in The Republic of Crabcakia (Maryland) who have gone solar & get money back from the power co when they produce more power than they consume. A LARGE part of the cost of installation is offset by state income tax credits (MD tax is fairly steep) for solar panels, geothermal heat pumps etc I seem to recall the homeowners saying that someone in the middle gets a cut of the action in exchange for maintaining / repairing the solar systems. Across the river in VA where the tax incentives aren't there,  solar houses are far less prevalent.

 
The Future Champs said:
3.  In what way is it relevant that Denmark is tiny compared to the United States?
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I also never know why this gets repeatedly trotted out like it actually means anything. In this case it means even less than nothing. So the U.S. has a vastly larger potential to absorb energy from the sun than Denmark? I guess that's somehow hilarious. 

 
BoltBacker said:
I also never know why this gets repeatedly trotted out like it actually means anything. In this case it means even less than nothing. So the U.S. has a vastly larger potential to absorb energy from the sun than Denmark? I guess that's somehow hilarious. 
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It's wind power and its 39% of energy used for electrical consumption not 39% of energy produced.

Denmark can be much more efficient with transmission due to their compactness.  The offshore turbines are pretty close to their urban hubs.  We could never approach anything close to that level of efficiency.

 
jonessed said:
It's wind power and its 39% of energy used for electrical consumption not 39% of energy produced.

Denmark can be much more efficient with transmission due to their compactness.  The offshore turbines are pretty close to their urban hubs.  We could never approach anything close to that level of efficiency.
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The United States has excellent potential for wind power production off both the east and west coasts, as well as the great lakes and the gulf of mexico.   Those areas serve a great % of the population.   Probably the only area where we have an excess in potential production vs local consumption is in the northern great plains states, primarily Wyoming and the Dakotas.  

And I still don't see why it's funny that Denmark produces 42% of its electricity from wind power.

 
The Future Champs said:
1.   Why is it funny that Denmark has a 42% share?

2.  I'm fine with windmills in my neighborhood, although it isn't a great location.   We have a lot of windmills in the state, primarily in the gorge and on the eastern side of the cascades, and I think that's great as well.

3.  In what way is it relevant that Denmark is tiny compared to the United States?
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Windmills?  Put them close to the silos.

 
I had dreams of working in the green energy field in 2007/2008 as Obama took office, tried several times to break thru and be a green energy salesman, there simply are not a lot of companies that do it and most folks don't seem to want solar energy if it means even a small compromise. The technology is now decades along, people know they can outfit their homes and they still won't do it because the energy companies are not handing them out for free or nailing them to their roofs at no cost. 

 
My electric bill was about $200 last year. Not bad. Even with an electric car.

 
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I'll most likely wil be doing solar this year. The tax credit runs out in 2016. Unless it's renewed. 

My electric bill is nuts right now. 

 
MattFancy said:
I had a quote about a year ago from Vivint Solar. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't as much of a savings as I thought it would be. If the prices keep dropping, I can definitely see myself jumping in. There's about 150 houses in my neighborhood, I'd say there's 5-10 houses with solar power so far.
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Vivint salesman pissed me off to no end.

He came to my door and I told him I wasn't interested.  So he came back like a week later and scheduled an appointment with my wife.

So, we meet with him and he says if I sign with him right now he can offer three things that he won't be able to in the coming weeks because of legislation changing (this was end of 2015).

He assures me that I can cancel at any time...so no hassle.

The three things he offered:

  1. Upgrade to my breaker box (brand new box that'll accommodate the panels better).
  2. Enough panels to knock my $250 average electric bill down to almost zero
  3. Any structural needs my roof requires for the panels...they'd pay for...
So we go through all this nonsense...I have to give them my electric bill and let them take pictures of all of the equipment that is sucking juice off the grid (he does this without telling me).  A guy just shows up and shows my wife the Vivint contract and tells her he needs to take pictures of everything (tv, fridges, router, etc).  It was the router that pissed me off the most...he basically had my network id and reset password, everything.

I called up the salesman and chewed his @zz about this...for one, not telling me someone was coming or preparing me for this process and second, taking a picture of my router info.

He assures me it's all good in the hood...we're still on schedule...stay in...

I do...then he comes back with a plan that is about 80% of my bill...saying he couldn't fit as many panels as he first thought.

Then someone comes out to check my attic and see what structural needs the roof will need.

He comes back and says they can't tell what's going on with my vaulted ceiling since there's no access...it's vaulted...so no crawl space.  They're unsure if the span between the joists is OK...so they have to modify the plan down to about 50% of my electrical...fewer panels.

And on top of that...no power panel upgrade because of the fewer panels.

So...the three things he promised...all dead now.

I told him to cram his entire company in his granny.

Another person from Vivint calls me a few weeks later and says we're on schedule for the install.  I tell him the same deal...his salesman lied to me about every aspect...cram it!

 
The Future Champs said:
The United States has excellent potential for wind power production off both the east and west coasts, as well as the great lakes and the gulf of mexico.   Those areas serve a great % of the population.   Probably the only area where we have an excess in potential production vs local consumption is in the northern great plains states, primarily Wyoming and the Dakotas.  

And I still don't see why it's funny that Denmark produces 42% of its electricity from wind power.
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Right.  NIMBY would crush any attempt to put windmills up on the west coast.  The east coast already tried and failed.

Not that it matters.  The amount of energy produced would still be a tiny percentage of consumption.  Denmark has small urban hubs close to the coast, we have huge sprawling populations.  The situations are completely different.

 
jon_mx said:
It was extended last year to go thru 2019.  
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Thanks looked it up. 


5. The Solar Tax Credit is Available Through 2019


The 30%, uncapped solar tax credit was passed as part of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Recently Congress has agreed to extend the solar ITC at the current 30% rate through 2019, after which it will fall to 26% in 2020, 22% in 2021 and 10% in 2022.

 
tdoss said:
Vivint salesman pissed me off to no end.

He came to my door and I told him I wasn't interested.  So he came back like a week later and scheduled an appointment with my wife.

So, we meet with him and he says if I sign with him right now he can offer three things that he won't be able to in the coming weeks because of legislation changing (this was end of 2015).

He assures me that I can cancel at any time...so no hassle.

The three things he offered:

  1. Upgrade to my breaker box (brand new box that'll accommodate the panels better).
  2. Enough panels to knock my $250 average electric bill down to almost zero
  3. Any structural needs my roof requires for the panels...they'd pay for...
So we go through all this nonsense...I have to give them my electric bill and let them take pictures of all of the equipment that is sucking juice off the grid (he does this without telling me).  A guy just shows up and shows my wife the Vivint contract and tells her he needs to take pictures of everything (tv, fridges, router, etc).  It was the router that pissed me off the most...he basically had my network id and reset password, everything.

I called up the salesman and chewed his @zz about this...for one, not telling me someone was coming or preparing me for this process and second, taking a picture of my router info.

He assures me it's all good in the hood...we're still on schedule...stay in...

I do...then he comes back with a plan that is about 80% of my bill...saying he couldn't fit as many panels as he first thought.

Then someone comes out to check my attic and see what structural needs the roof will need.

He comes back and says they can't tell what's going on with my vaulted ceiling since there's no access...it's vaulted...so no crawl space.  They're unsure if the span between the joists is OK...so they have to modify the plan down to about 50% of my electrical...fewer panels.

And on top of that...no power panel upgrade because of the fewer panels.

So...the three things he promised...all dead now.

I told him to cram his entire company in his granny.

Another person from Vivint calls me a few weeks later and says we're on schedule for the install.  I tell him the same deal...his salesman lied to me about every aspect...cram it!
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so was part of the deal that you had to pay for the panels over time and transfer them to the new owner if you were to sell?

 
VA703 said:
is this something hoa has to approve?
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for me, yes.  problem is my front yard roof faces SW, which is ideal, and my back yard faces NE, which isn't ideal.  HOA is going to want them on the backyard, but i'm reading through it, and it looks like if i can show front side would be at least 10% better, they can approve it.

 
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