History Of Solar Panel Price

A brief history of solar panels.

History of solar panel price.

By 1975 that figure had dropped to just over 100 a watt. The price decreases over the past ten years are a major reason why homeowners are increasingly interested in installing solar panels. The history of solar panels can be described by becquerel s discovery of photovoltaic effect or the invention of first solar cell by chapin fuller and pearson in bell labs. The term solar panel is used colloquially for a photo voltaic pv module.

The use of solar panels in the space program through the 1960s increased production and slowly the price reduced to around 100 per watt. Since the year 1980 solar panel prices have dropped by at least 10 percent every single year. Today a solar panel can cost as little as 0 50 a watt. But the story is much larger than just that.

Growth slowed in the 1980s due to the drop in traditional energy prices. In 1956 solar panels cost roughly 300 per watt. But in the next decades the federal government was more involved with solar energy. A pv module is an assembly of photo voltaic cells mounted in a framework for installation.

Changes in solar panel cost over time can be explained by swanson s law which states that the price of solar pv modules decreases by about 20 percent for every doubling in global solar capacity the law is named after richard swanson founder of high.