Costs continue to fall for residential, commercial rooftop, and utility-scale PV systems—by 3%, 11%, and 12%, respectively, compared to last year. Costs also declined across residential, commercial, and industrial PV-plus-storage systems, with the greatest cost declines for utility-scale systems. Standalone storage systems also saw cost declines.
Calculating Module Costs for Established and Emerging PV Technologies
A major component of total installed system costs is the cost of the PV modules. In Photovoltaic Module Technologies: 2020 Benchmark Costs and Technology Evolution Framework Results, NREL researchers calculate a minimum sustainable price—the price necessary to support a sustainable business over the long term—for PV modules. The report benchmarks three established, mass-produced PV technologies (silicon, cadmium telluride, and copper indium gallium [di]selenide) as well as two emerging technologies (low-cost III-Vs and perovskites).
This research is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office, which supports early-stage research and development in three technology areas: photovoltaics, concentrating solar-thermal power, and systems integration with the goal of improving the affordability, reliability, and domestic benefit of solar technologies on the grid. Learn more: https://energy.gov/solar-office.
NREL is a national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, operated by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC.
