NREL: Cost of solar, energy storage in US dropped across all segments from 2020 to 2021

• The installed cost of solar PV, solar-plus-storage and standalone battery energy storage in the US was minimized across all market segments in between 2020 and also 2021, with the largest decrease seen in the utility-scale segment.

The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has simply released the latest version of its yearly benchmarking workout for the cost of solar PV and also energy storage in the country. It contrasts the installed cost of the innovations from Q1 2020 to Q1 2021, making use of a bottom-up approach that accounts for all system and task advancement costs.

Scientists located that the cost of a 100MW utility-scale single-axis solar plant fell by 12.31% from US$ 1.02/ Wdc to US$ 0.89/ Wdc. Set up costs for a 60MW/ 240MWh standalone battery energy storage system (BESS) fell by 13.14% from US$ 437/kWh to US$ 379/kWh.

For solar-plus-storage, both DC-coupled as well as AC-coupled arrangements were considered. The cost of a utility-scale PV + BESS system, DC-coupled with 100MW PV as well as 60MW/ 240MWh BESS fell by 11.55% from US$ 190 million to US$ 168 million. For an AC-coupled system of the exact same generation, output and also capability, the cost reduction was somewhat greater, at 12.26%, falling from US$ 190 million to US$ 167 million.

At the same time, for commercial-scale installations, the cost reduction was between 9.25% for DC-coupled solar-plus-storage, 9.48% for AC-coupled solar-plus-storage and 10.71% for solar PV by itself, with a 10.65% reduction in the cost of standalone BESS.

The modelled industrial system sizes were 200kW of PV for a solar PV-only installment, 1MW of solar PV coupled with 600kW/ 2,400 kWh of battery or 600kW/ 2,400 kWh of standalone battery storage.

Residential standalone BESS saw an in a similar way dramatic cost reduction year-on-year, dropping 9.68% for a 5kW/ 12.5 kWh system, but a 22-module residential PV-only system's set up cost only fell 3.25%. A DC-coupled household solar-plus-storage system's cost dropped 5.79% while an AC-coupled household solar-plus-storage system dropped just 3.39%.

Nonetheless, various variables like adjustments in operational profile, system design as well as innovation enhancements saw the domestic solar and also solar-plus-storage segments take pleasure in comparable or larger falls in levelised cost of energy (LCOE) to commercial and utility-scale.

Residential PV-plus-storage's LCOE fell 13%, as did utility-scale solar-plus-storage. Residential standalone PV's LCOE dropped 9%, as did the LCOE of commercial-scale PV systems. Utility-scale PV system LCOE fell by 12% and commercial solar-plus-storage by 7%.

The full 62-page report is readily available absolutely free from NREL's web site.

Several of the worldwide supply chain concerns currently being experienced by business across the solar worth chain-- as well as many other unrelated sectors-- in the wake of the COVID pandemic have supposedly now begun to additionally be really felt in the battery storage industry. At the same time, details solar supply chain issues like profession tolls on imported modules to the United States as well as the changing rate of polysilicon will combine with these global market characteristics to perhaps make it uncertain which instructions costs will go by the moment of next year's report.