[ziggy_star]

High efficiency: $0.19 Mainstream: $0.13 Junk tier: $0.08

Trending flat as of late with single digit percentage reductions in price to be expected year over year.

At these prices the actual panels for most houses would be below $1,000 wholesale. The vast majority of the cost is elsewhere.

It is great that it keeps getting cheaper but at this point the returns are diminishing. If you're thinking of buying something there is no new tech or anything on the horizon worth waiting for just go ahead.

[xbmcuser]

Now the next big thing in home solar will be home batteries. BYD seagull Chinese car costs less than $10k it has a 30-32 kWh battery where as a Tesla powerwall costs around $9k for 13 kWh. With feed in tariff restrictions being added home battery market is going to explode.

[AtlasBarfed]

Sodium ion batteries are going to revolutionize the world

[pbmonster]

> It is great that it keeps getting cheaper but at this point the returns are diminishing. If you're thinking of buying something there is no new tech or anything on the horizon worth waiting for just go ahead.

I think if they get perovskite degradation under control, tandem cells with 30%+ efficiency are on the horizon.

Also, future cells still can get a whole lot thinner and lighter, which decreases material costs and overall requirements on mounting hardware (only a little, you still need to deal with wind loads).

But I agree, especially for home owners there's no reason to wait. Still, if you're in the business of building a gigawatt scale powerplants, there's still a lot of things to look forward to. Also, ground installation of panels still has a lot of untapped automation potential.

[dzhiurgis]

> at this point the returns are diminishing

Welll... Tandem perovskite cells have been tested up to 35% effective while your traditional ones are 20-25%. So for same labour cost you'll get 50% more returns...