Summary:

Berkeley Lab has released its 2019 edition of its “Utility-Scale Solar” report. This report explores trends in deployment and solar energy project design, installed solar power project prices, operating costs of solar, capacity factors, power purchase agreement (PPA) prices and the levelized cost of energy.

Main Article:

Berkeley Lab Utility-Scale Solar Report Shows Florida Led the Country in 2018

Berkeley Lab has released its 2019 edition of its “Utility-Scale Solar” report, which presents analysis of project-level data from a fleet of PV and CSP projects exceeding 5 MW in size. While focused on key developments in 2018, this report explores trends in deployment and solar energy project design, installed solar power project prices, operating costs of solar, capacity factors, power purchase agreement (PPA) prices and the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) among the U.S. fleet of utility-scale solar panel installations. This year’s edition also includes a new section focused on the wholesale market value of solar power.

Key findings from this year’s report include:

- Tracking systems continue to outnumber fixed-tilt projects, with single-axis tracking employed by more than 70% of all new utility-scale solar power capacity added in 2018.

- Median installed solar energy project prices from a 2.5-GW_AC sample of projects completed in 2018 declined to $1.6/W_AC (or $1.2/W_DC), with the lowest 20th percentile priced at or below $1.3/W_AC (or $0.9/W_DC).

- Project-level capacity factors vary widely, from 12% to 35% (on an AC basis), with a sample median of 25%. The high degree of project-level variation is based on a number of factors, including insolation, tracking vs. fixed-tilt, inverter loading ratios, performance degradation and curtailment — all of which are explored in detail in the report.

- PPA prices from a sample of contracts signed in 2018 or 2019 continued to decline, to below $30/MWh on average and with a few PPAs even below $20/MWh (levelized, in 2018 dollars). PPA prices have followed solar energy’s LCOE lower over time, suggesting a relatively efficient market.

Although solar power’s “duck curve”-related decline in wholesale market value within California has been much-publicized, in most other regions of the country, solar power still provides above-average value. In 2018, solar energy’s market value (defined here to include only energy and capacity value) exceeded average wholesale prices for all but two — California and New England — of the seven independent solar-powered system operators (ISOs) across the United States. However, even solar in California, where solar power’s market value has steadily declined over time to 79% of average wholesale prices in 2018, falling PPA prices have largely kept pace, thereby more or less maintaining solar power’s competitiveness over time. Solar energy in other ISOs offers higher value yet, in some cases, similar or even lower PPA price levels, which may be one reason why the market has been shifting away from California and into other less-sunny regions.

Adding battery storage to shift a portion of excess mid-day solar power generation into evening hours is one way to increase the value of solar. These solar + storage hybrid projects are becoming increasingly common, particularly in high-penetration markets like Arizona, California, Nevada and Hawaii: seven such projects came online in 2018, and another 30 have been announced in some detail, often at the time of securing a PPA. More speculatively, but also a harbinger of things to come, at least 55 GW of solar + storage projects were in the interconnection queues across the country at the end of 2018, accounting for 20% of all solar energy capacity in the queues at that time.

The full Utility-Scale Solar report, along with an accompanying summary slide deck, a data file, and a number of interactive data visualizations, can be found at utilityscalesolar.lbl.gov.

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