In the USA, median installed utility-scale PV project prices declined to $2.2 per watt(ac) or $1.7 per watt (dc), respectively, with the lowest price at or below $2.0 per watt (ac), according to the latest report »Utility-Scale Solar 2016« released by the US-Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).

Furthermore, the utility-scale PV market continues to expand geographically across the United States, with 29 states home to one or more utility-scale solar projects at the end of 2016. Nearly 80 percent of all new utility-scale PV capacity added in 2016 employing single-axis tracking. Even projects sited in lower-insolation regions and north of the 45th parallel have found single-axis tracking to be economical.

Moreover, PPA prices continued to decline, with a few dipping below $30/MWh (levelized, in 2016 dollars). PPAs that have been signed since the start of 2016 are priced at less than $50/MWh. In 2011, solar PPA prices in excess of $100/MWh were quite common.

The utility-scale solar sector has led the overall U.S. solar market in terms of installed capacity since 2012. In 2016, the utility-scale sector installed more than 2.5 times as much new capacity as did the residential and commercial sectors combined, and is expected to maintain its dominant position for at least another five years. At the end of 2016, there were at least 121.4 GW of utility-scale solar power capacity within the interconnection queues across the nation, says the study. The growth within these queues is widely distributed across all regions of the country: California and the Southeast each account for 23 percent of the 83.3 GW of solar that first entered the queues in 2016, followed by the Northeast (17 percent), the Southwest (16 percent), the Central region (12 percent), Texas (6 percent) and the Northwest (3 percent). According to the report, »the widening geographic distribution of solar projects is a clear sign that the utility-scale market is maturing and expanding outside of its traditional high-insolation comfort zones.«

The study presents analysis of empirical project-level data from the U.S. fleet of ground-mounted solar projects with capacities exceeding 5 MW (ac). While focused on key developments in 2016, this report explores trends in deployment and project design, installed project prices, operating costs, capacity factors, and power purchase agreement (PPA) prices among both utility-scale PV and concentrating solar thermal power (CSP) projects. The report »Utility-Scale Solar 2016: An Empirical Analysis of Project Cost, Performance, and Pricing Trends in the United States« is free of charge to download as PDF (61 pages) at »https://emp.lbl.gov (publications)«.