Alan Goodrich

Residential, Commercial, and Utility-Scale Photovoltaic (PV) System Prices in the United States: Current Drivers and Cost-Reduction Opportunities

The price of photovoltaic (PV) systems in the United States (i.e., the cost to the system owner) has dropped precipitously in recent years, led by substantial reductions in global PV module prices. However, system cost reductions are not necessarily realized or realized in a timely manner by many customers. Many reasons exist for the apparent disconnects between installation costs, component prices, and system prices; most notable is the impact of fair market value considerations on system prices. To guide policy and research and development strategy decisions, it is necessary to develop a granular perspective on the factors that underlie PV system prices and to eliminate subjective pricing parameters. This reports analysis of the overnight capital costs (cash purchase) paid for PV systems attempts to establish an objective methodology that most closely approximates the book value of PV system assets.

Photovoltaic (PV) Pricing Trends: Historical, Recent, and Near-Term Projections

LBNL-XXXX E RNEST O RLANDO L AWRENCE B ERKELEY N ATIONAL L ABORATORY Photovoltaic (PV) Pricing Trends: Historical, Recent, and Near-Term Projections David Feldman 1 , Galen Barbose 2 , Robert Margolis 1 , Ryan Wiser 2 , Naim Darghouth 2 , and Alan Goodrich 1 National Renewable Energy Laboratory 2 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory November 2012 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. Contract No. DE-AC36- 08GO28308 LBNL’s work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy SunShot program under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231 Technical Report DOE/GO-102012-3839 • November 2012 National Renewable Energy Laboratory 15013 Denver West Parkway Golden, CO 80401 303-275-3000 • www.nrel.gov Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory 1 Cyclotron Road Berkeley, CA 94720 510-486-4000 • www.lbl.gov

Modeling the Cost and Minimum Sustainable Price of Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Manufacturing in the United States

We extend our cost model to assess minimum sustainable prices of crystalline silicon wafer, cell, and module manufacturing in the United States. We investigate the cost and price structures of current multicrystalline silicon technology and consider the introduction of line-of-sight innovations currently on the industry roadmap, as well as advanced technologies currently at an earlier stage of development. We benchmark the capability of these concepts to reach the U.S. Department of Energy SunShot module price target and perform a sensitivity analysis to determine high-impact research domains that have the greatest impact on price. This exercise highlights advanced c-Si manufacturing concepts with significant cost reduction potential and provides insight into strategies that could greatly reduce module prices in a financially sustainable manner.

Assessing the drivers of regional trends in solar photovoltaic manufacturing

The photovoltaic (PV) industry has grown rapidly as a source of energy and economic activity. Since 2008, the average manufacturer-sale price of PV modules has declined by over a factor of two, coinciding with a significant increase in the scale of manufacturing in China. Using a bottom-up model for wafer-based silicon PV, we examine both historical and future factory-location decisions from the perspective of a multinational corporation. Our model calculates the cost of PV manufacturing with process step resolution, while considering the impact of corporate financing and operations with a calculation of the minimum selling price that provides an adequate rate of return. We quantify the conditions of Chinas historical PV price advantage, examine if these conditions can be reproduced elsewhere, and evaluate the role of innovative technology in altering regional competitive advantage. We find that the historical price advantage of a China-based factory relative to a U.S.-based factory is not driven by country-specific advantages, but instead by scale and supply-chain development. Looking forward, we calculate that technology innovations may result in effectively equivalent minimum sustainable manufacturing prices for the two locations. In this long-run scenario, the relative share of module shipping costs, as well as other factors, may promote regionalization of module-manufacturing operations to cost-effectively address local market demand. Our findings highlight the role of innovation, importance of manufacturing scale, and opportunity for global collaboration to increase the installed capacity of PV worldwide.

Supply-chain dynamics of tellurium, indium and gallium within the context of PV module manufacturing costs

If humankind is to implement more sustainable energy choices, it will be crucial for energy systems such as photovoltaics (PV) to demonstrate success both soon and over the long-term quest. To that end, both the crystalline silicon and thin-film technologies have made, and continue to make, remarkable strides toward providing solutions that are quickly becoming more competitive against the traditional sources for power generation. But, within the thin-film segment of this industry the highest demonstrated sunlight power conversion efficiencies have thus far come from material sets containing relatively rare constituent elements. These include tellurium in the cadmium telluride technology, and indium and/ or gallium in the CIS/copper indium gallium diselenide and III-V families of technologies. In this paper we show that the current global supply base for these three energy-critical elements is not sufficient for enabling energy-significant levels of PV deployment, but also show that each of the thin-film PV technologies that are described has an ability to absorb potential increases in the price for these constituent element(s). This ability then leads to the possibility that the supply base for each element can be augmented.Given the need for humankind to implement more sustainable energy choices, it is crucial for energy systems such as PV to demonstrate success both soon and over the long-term quest for meaningful deployment. To that end, both the crystalline silicon and thin-film technologies have made, and continue to make, remarkable strides toward providing solutions that are quickly becoming more competitive against the traditional sources for power generation. But, within the thin-film segment of this industry, the highest demonstrated sunlight power conversion efficiencies have thus far come from technologies containing relatively rare constituent elements. These include tellurium in cadmium telluride, and indium and/or gallium in the CIS/ CIGS and III–V families of technologies. In this paper we show that the current global supply base for these three energy-critical elements is not sufficient for enabling energy-significant levels of deployment, but also show that every one of the thin-film PV technologies that we describe has the ability to absorb an increase in the price for each constituent element(s). This ability then leads to the possibility that the supply base for each element can be augmented.

The levelized cost of energy for distributed PV: A parametric study

The maturation of distributed solar PV as an energy source requires that the technology no longer compete on module efficiency and manufacturing cost (

An economic analysis of photovoltaics versus traditional energy sources: Where are we now and where might we be in the near future?

/Wp) alone. Solar PV must yield sufficient energy (kWh) at a competitive cost (¢/kWh) to justify its system investment and ongoing maintenance costs. These metrics vary as a function of system design and interactions between parameters, such as efficiency and area-related installation costs. The calculation of levelized cost of energy includes energy production and costs throughout the life of the system. The life of the system and its components, the rate at which performance degrades, and operation and maintenance requirements all affect the cost of energy. Cost of energy is also affected by project financing and incentives. In this paper, the impact of changes in parameters such as efficiency and in assumptions about operating and maintenance costs, degradation rate and system life, system design, and financing will be examined in the context of levelized cost of energy.

The value proposition for high lifetime (p-type) and thin silicon materials in solar PV applications

A precipitous drop in the price of the crystalline silicon solar photovoltaic (PV) modules typically employed for residential applications has recently been observed: The typical sales price for modules was around

Supply Chain and Blade Manufacturing Considerations in the Global Wind Industry (Presentation)

4/WP DC in 2008 but could easily approach

Co-Evaporated Cu2ZnSnSe4 Films and Devices

1.50/W WP DC by the end of this year1. As module price declines continue, and as gains are also realized in balance-of-system costs, the economics of PV systems for power generation become increasingly competitive. In this presentation, we will examine whether solar will reach grid parity in the United States if monocrystalline silicon modules achieve an optimistic-case scenario in efficiency and cost. The analysis suggests that PV systems are already economically viable in select markets, but further cost reductions and efficiency improvements above and beyond the monocrystalline optimistic-case scenarios are necessary in order to be competitive against incumbent electricity production in most markets across the United States.