Catherine Wolfram on what drove solar PV price reductions | Energy Institute Blog

In a new blog post on the Energy at Haas Blog, Catherine Wolfram discusses the reduction in solar photovoltaic prices over the last half-century.

“One of the most remarkable trends in energy economics over the last 50 years is the tremendous reduction in solar photovoltaic (PV) prices. The figure below charts prices on a log scale. In words, it shows that prices in 1970 were about 1,000 times higher than they are currently.

“I’ve been on a quest to understand this phenomenon – I’d heard conjectures about scale economies driven by generous subsidies for rooftop installations under the German Energiewende or massive subsidies from the Chinese government, but hadn’t dug into it myself.

It turns out that Greg Nemet, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, recently published a book called, How Solar Energy Became Cheap, which provides a number of insights. And, because there are so many promising energy books to review this year (more on that to come!), I’m going to break my book reviews into pieces and devote this post to Nemet’s book.”

Read more: https://energyathaas.wordpress.com/2019/09/09/what-drove-solar-pv-price-reductions/