Utility scale solar power as cheap as 70 per watt and still falling

[jpak]

https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2019/12/20/utility-scale-solar-power-as-cheap-as-75%C2%A2-per-watt-says-government-researchers/

The US Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) has released Utility Scale Solar: Empirical Trends in Project Technology, Cost, Performance, and PPA Pricing in the United States. The report covers a lot of information on projects 5MWac or larger — representing 60% of all solar installed in 2018.

(The report jumps between labeling data in terms of inverter sizing (ac) and solar module sizing (dc), and so does our article as we try to match data accuracy.)

Pricing is still going down, with 27 of 38 post-2017 power purchase agreements in the sample at lower than $40/MWh, 21 PPAs lower than $30/MWh and 4 even lower than $20/MWh.

Here’s a condensed version of the author’s themes, which LBNL covers in a tweet thread:

Installation and Technology Trends:

(edit: these are bullet points in this paragraph)

Solar trackers are on 70% of all new capacity, fixed-tilt projects are predominantly in less-sunny regions but trackers are invading. Inverter loading ratio (“ILR” or DC to AC rating) has grown steadily since 2014, to 1.33 in 2018.

Installed Prices: Average of $1.60/Wac (or $1.20/Wdc) for projects completed in 2018. The lowest 20th percentile of projects were priced at or below $1.30/Wac (or 97¢/Wdc), with the lowest-priced projects around $1.00/Wac (or ~70¢/Wdc).

Capacity Factors: AC capacity ranges widely, from 12.1% to 34.8%, with a sample median of 25.2%. Tracking boosts capacity factors by up to 5% in higher insolation regions, and lesser elsewhere.

PPA Prices and LCOE: PPA prices for utility-scale PV have fallen by $10/MWh per year in most years since 2013. Excluding the benefit of the 30% ITC, the median LCOE among operational PV projects in the sample stood at $53.8/MWh in 2018. The price declines for installation cost were larger for larger sized projects as can be seen when bucketing the projects: $1.42/Wdc for 5MW to 20MW, $1.21/Wdc for 20MW to 50MW and $1.04/Wdc for 50MW to 100MW.

<more>

[RainCaster]

1. An interesting read, thanks