This report provides a comprehensive summary of installed cost trends for grid-connected solar photovoltaic (PV) systems in the United States from 1998 through 2009, and provides preliminary cost trends for systems installed in 2010.

In addition to describing temporal trends, the report also describes trends in installed costs by system size; by component; between the United States, Germany, and Japan; among individual states; between customer-owned and third party-owned systems; and among customer types, applications, and technologies. The report also describes trends in financial incentive levels over time, by customer type and among states, and the associated impact of those trends on the net installed cost of PV for residential and commercial PV system owners after receipt of incentives.

The report, along with a PowerPoint briefing and associated data file, can be downloaded from: http://eetd.lbl.gov/ea/emp/re-pubs.html

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Source: LBNL

This report provides a comprehensive summary of installed cost trends for grid-connected solar photovoltaic (PV) systems in the United States from 1998 through 2007.  It is based on project-level data from nearly 37,000 residential and non-residential PV systems, totaling 363 MW of capacity and representing 76% of all grid-connected PV capacity installed in the U.S. through 2007.  These data were provided by 16 PV incentive programs spanning 12 states.

The report detials that average installed costs have declined over time, from $10.5/W in 1998 to $7.6/W in 2007 (in real 2007 dollars per installed watt DC).  Cost reductions are especially prevalent among smaller PV systems and are primarily attributable to reductions in non-module costs.  The distribution of installed costs has also narrowed significantly over time, with high-cost outliers becoming increasingly infrequent.  From 2005-2007, however, both average installed costs and the distribution of installed costs have remained relatively fixed.  Costs are generally lower in states with larger PV deployment programs, and international experience suggests that greater near-term cost reductions are possible, with Japan and Germany exhibiting significantly lower average installed costs for residential PV systems than the U.S.

The authors also find evidence of sizable economies of scale among the PV systems in our sample, significant variation in average installed cost among states, and cost advantages for PV installed in residential new construction relative to the retrofit market.  The report also describes trends in financial incentive levels over time, by customer type and among states, and the associated impact of these trends on the net installed cost of PV for residential and commercial PV system owners after receipt of incentives.

The report can be downloaded from:
http://eetd.lbl.gov/ea/emp/reports/lbnl-1516e.pdf

A PowerPoint presentation that summarizes key findings can be found at:
http://eetd.lbl.gov/ea/emp/emp-ppt.html

Funding support for this report was provided by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Technologies Program and Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, and the Clean Energy States Alliance.