The average price of standard c-Si modules is starting to stall around 73 cents per watt (according to SEIA) despite the recent free fall the industry has experienced.
The International Trade Commission voted in January to uphold significant tariffs on imported solar modules from China and Taiwan. Various anti-duty U.S.-based solar companies and supporters suggested these high tariffs could promote a module shortage in 2015 and stall the decreasing panel prices we’ve become accustomed to in the last few years.
While that has yet to be seen, the good news is that while modules probably won’t get significantly cheaper immediately, they will eventually drop again. IHS forecasts the average global selling prices of standard c-Si modules to decline 27% by 2019 to 45 cents per watt.
Ford Eversun says
The Graph should go back further to tell the whole story. If you go back to the 80’s you will see a steady asymptotic decline YoY in prices from ~$7-8/W, except for the bump in ’02, ’03 with a silicon shortage (which went away when new silicon production facilities came on line) and the dramatic dip you see starting in 2008 when state subsidized modules were sold below cost, not in the region they were manufactured BTW. Just like we needed a corrective drop in prices after the silicon shortage, a corrective uptick, or in this case “stop the bleeding” and plateau, of prices makes sense. As much as the anti duty contingency might hope, modules will never be free, (although you could make the argument that they are in the sense that they can pay for themselves and more with the savings they provide from conventional energy), they have to stop dropping at some point. To my point above of looking at more than a snapshot graph, if you projected the future trend only looking at the small portion from 2009 to 2012, manufacturers should be paying us to take modules off their hands now in 2015.
If the industry continues to grow at these local manufacturing sustainable prices and solar continues to be deployed at continuously record breaking rates, I don’t understand the doom and gloom of module prices being too high, even though they are at the lowest they have been in a self sustaining profitable manufacturing business perspective. It’s not a module shortage the anti subsidy contingency are concerned with (global capacity still outweighs global demand I should think) it is a rise in module prices that concerns them…And hey, guess what, that is how economics works…supply demand, when we get to a point when demand outweighs the supply, yes, prices will go up. Happens with oranges and avocados too. Just like people still buy gas whether the gas costs $4/gal or $2.50/gal…we live in an energy hungry society, and solar provides energy. Doom and gloom is a scare tactic that won’t negate intelligence.