Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap (2020)
Just as remarkably, and relevant for considering the future cost of solar, the decline of solar prices over the past decade has been faster than almost any credible forecast. Let’s add forecasts made by the International Energy Agency (IEA) in their 2010 World Energy Outlook, along with the forecast I made in 2011 at Scientific American. When we do, using dashed lines for the forecasts, we see that actual solar prices are well below those expected by the world’s most well-known energy analyst and forecaster (the IEA), and even below the most optimistic projections put forward a decade ago (mine). In fact, solar in 2020 is:
Less than half the price I forecast in 2011.
Less than a quarter of the price the IEA forecast in 2010.