\n
![](\"http:\/\/www.eei.org\/Style%20Library\/EEI\/logo_eei.gif\"){kind=logo}
<\/a>\nMore from the
\n
\nEdison Electric Institute<\/a> January 2013 report,
\n
\nDisruptive Challenges: Financial Implications and Strategic Responses to a Changing Retail Electric Business<\/a> (rehosted on the LAKE web server, since it disappered from the EEI server),\n<\/p>\n
\n
\n<\/a>
\nThe decline in the price of PV panels from $3.80\/watt in 2008 to
\n$0.86\/watt in mid-20121<\/sup><\/small>. While some will
\nquestion the sustainability of cost-curve trends experienced, it
\nis expected that PV panel costs will not increase (or not increase
\n meaningfully) even as the current supply glut is resolved. As a result,
\nthe all-in cost of PV solar installation approximates $5\/watt, with
\nexpectations of the cost declining further as scale is realized;\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\nSure, costs won’t continue to drop forever, but
\n
\n<\/a>
\n they can for a decade
\nor two.
\n“Some” may question that, but EEI clearly doesn’t; EEI understands
\nthat plain old economy of scale will keep solar PV prices
\ngoing down for some time.
\nAnd lower prices mean more and faster deployment, just like
\n
\nalready happened in 2012 and earlier years<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n
\n<\/a>
\nBloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) projects that distributed solar
\ncapacity will grow rapidly as a result of the competitive dynamics
\nhighlighted. BNEF projects 22-percent compound annual growth in PV
\ninstallations through 2020, resulting in 30 gigawatts (GW) of capacity
\noverall (and approximately 4.5 GW coming from distributed PV). This would
\naccount for 10 percent of capacity in key markets coming from distributed
\nresources and even a larger share of year-round energy generated.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n
\n<\/a>
\nIt looks like that growth rate
\n
\nis probably low according to FERC’s figures<\/a>
\nEven if so, will just take a few years longer,
\neven with
\n
\nfossil fuels getting five times the subsidies of renewable energy<\/a>,
\nfor<\/p>\n
\nsolar to burn the old electric utility business model<\/a>.
\nA prudent utility would break its baseload thermal generation addiction before
\n
\nthe carbon bubble pops<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n\n -jsq<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
And they know compound annual growth, even at a low 22% rate, is going to cause them a heap of trouble. More from the Edison Electric Institute January 2013 report, Disruptive Challenges: Financial Implications and Strategic Responses to a Changing Retail Electric Business (rehosted on the LAKE web server, since it disappered from the EEI […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[216,14,19,6124,559,23,24,36],"tags":[6141,6142,2906,972,8753,6138,6129,6139,8704,6140,6128,8701,8702,12,7,562,8782,8713,8714,2045,6,8716],"class_list":["post-2942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coal","category-economy","category-history","category-natural-gas-2","category-oil","category-renewable-energy","category-solar","category-wind","tag-bloomberg-new-energy-finance","tag-bnef","tag-business-model","tag-carbon-bubble","tag-coal","tag-compound-annual-growth","tag-disruptive","tag-distributed-solar","tag-economy","tag-edison-electric-institute","tag-eei","tag-georgia","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-natural-gas","tag-oil","tag-renewable-energy","tag-solar","tag-solar-pv","tag-valdosta","tag-wind"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2942"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21420,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2942\/revisions\/21420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}