Media Matters Covers Solar Photovoltaics
I’ll be sending this along to Bob Gourley, who hosted me on the terrific radio show “Issues Today” last week, but who steadfastly (and incorrectly) denied that the price of solar photovoltaics is falling rapidly.
Craig,
The problem is that there’s not much further for the installed price to fall, as the predominate cost issues are now labor and liability. The only people who really can cut costs are do-it-yourselfers, and that’s a select group when it comes to rooftop electrician work.
I think the major growth in solar is likely to be new construction: when you’re already paying people to crawl around on the roof and already paying the electrician to do complex wiring, the marginal cost of just the panels and inverters are pretty low, but costs aren’t likely to further fall very quickly for having a company come to your house and install solar panels… At $4/W, that’s still a LCOE of >$0.12/kWh, which is more than most people pay for electricity. In almost all cases it’s a far better return for someone to improve their thermal envelope or improve their HVAC system and seal their ducts… or buy a Prius-class hybrid.
Of course, we have massive subsidies for solar, and little-to-no subsidies for improving efficiency, so the numbers get muddied quickly.