John's Comments

Foiled by the European convention with using periods as a thousands separator. I fixed that glaring error in Germany's solar output. Apologies!

@bkarney

You're right, I did misunderstand the tiers. And my misunderstanding led to a drastic underestimate of the value of solar under PG&E's TOU plan. Update here: http://energyselfreliantstates.org/content/electricity-priced-hour-boosts-distributed-solar-value-third-or-more

Thanks for all the recommendations about the log scale. I'm not going to replace it in the post, because I'm not convinced that the accuracy is worth the potential loss of accessibility. But for you log scale loving nerds, here's the log scale version:

http://energyselfreliantstates.org/content/solar-cost-and-market-size-log-scale

If the prices seem high, that's because I intentionally left out incentives (i.e. no federal tax credit, depreciation, rebates, grants, or production incentives). Those who want to can add those in.

Secondly, I have received many comments that the prices are too high, but I'm basing the prices on known project costs and existing datasets. If you have a dataset for the U.S. suggesting that residential solar is being installed at an AVERAGE or MEDIAN price less than $4.40 per Watt, send it to jfarrell@ilsr.org. Thanks!

Sincerely,
-John

@jgubman

Two thoughts. First, with solar leasing and other 3rd party arrangements, solar can be more costly than grid power as long as the lease/PPA has an escalator that is forecast to be lower than grid power inflation.

And second, it's not always purely an economic decision. Or folks may be willing to expect longer than a 25-year project life...

@John-Bronson

I pretty much use NREL's PVWatts for estimating output. For Los Angeles, for example, that's about 1500 kWh AC for every DC kW of capacity. I also include panel degradation of 0.5% per year.

Tam,

I'm not aware of the legislation that authorized an extension of the cash grant for solar. Could you post a reference?

Sincerely,
-John

@1solarlife

Actually, it is $4.40 per Watt. My apologies if that's unclear in the article. It's $2/Watt less than the national average for residential solar of $6.40 per Watt

Sincerely,
-John

spweaver has it close to what I used
- 5% cost of capital (80% debt)
- 25-year project life
- $4.40/W installed PV system (all in)
- 1500 kWh/yr/kW-p
- real discount rate of 2%

If you have updated data on offshore wind power, I'd love to see the studies. The offshore wind data comes from publicly available studies published in 2009 or before and as such may not be included.

@Bob - I appreciate your comment that the borders are artificial in terms of electricity flows, but state political boundaries are highly significant in setting renewable energy and economic development policy and therefore this map has a great deal of meaning.

Fixed! Thanks for the note.

Bob,

The data presented here are location neutral, as is appropriate since a large or small wind farm can be in a windier regime.

I don't really understand your comments about transmission lines, since that cost isn't included in the Wind Technologies Market report, just the cost of the turbine project. I agree that it's important to amortize assets over their useful life, however, rather than just the finance period. It is a tricky business however. In the solar world, I always get people telling me that 20 years it too short as well, and then others saying that it's too long.

-JF

Homeowners get depreciation benefits all the time via a solar lease option, which would still be feasible under a CLEAN Contract.

Gainesville, FL, has 4 MW of operational solar, Vermont has ~3 MW, and Hawaii has ~2 MW. All of the programs are fairly new.

@grantrallen

If it's cheaper than grid electricity, then that's all that matters.

@phil A solar carve out is great, but I think the preponderance of evidence suggests that a feed-in tariff program would more cost effectively provide a mechanism for bringing solar to market. New Jersey's SREC market just crashed and is hoping for a legislative rescue...

Glenn,

Please explain your doubling comment. A wind project costs $1600 per kW, not $1600 per MW (the price the UK is suggesting).

Also, perhaps the wind developers should take your comment about investing to heart and send out a prospectus along with any public meeting about a new wind project. You may find it a trivial bit of knowledge, but perhaps the folks living near the turbine feel differently.

-John