The graph of price vs. cumulative modules production makes it look like the typical power law experience curve continues to hold (if you ignore some sort term blips.)
If I recall correctly, the exponent in this law for PV was around -.2, so a 10x increase in cumulative production would lead to a halving of the price. With only 17GW peak (4 GW average) of modules produced so far, there's room for at least several more orders of magnitude increase in cumulative production.
At some point, if residential/commercial PV takes off, utilities may have to change their pricing away from just charging per kwh, and add a charge for supply guarantee. They already do this for large industrial consumers like steel minimills ("take or pay" contracts).
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james_davis_nicoll) wrote2011-06-17 01:42 pm
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If I recall correctly, the exponent in this law for PV was around -.2, so a 10x increase in cumulative production would lead to a halving of the price. With only 17GW peak (4 GW average) of modules produced so far, there's room for at least several more orders of magnitude increase in cumulative production.
At some point, if residential/commercial PV takes off, utilities may have to change their pricing away from just charging per kwh, and add a charge for supply guarantee. They already do this for large industrial consumers like steel minimills ("take or pay" contracts).