For anyone who is in any doubt about the incredible journey that solar power has been on over the past decade the graph below – sourced via this story on Treehugger – offers a stunning reminder. As the graph shows, the cost of solar PV – the orange part – 40 years ago was up around $US100 per Watt, and a global total of only 2MW was installed. Of course the cost of the promising technology falls rapidly from there, but global solar installations – the blue bit – barely register until that magic moment somewhere between 2000 and 2005, when price per Watt reaches a tipping point and the blue bit soars to a total of just under 65,000MW in 2015.
Renew Economy 8th Feb 2016 read more »