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The Nationwide Renewable Power Laboratory launched a brand new benchmark metric referred to as “minimal sustainable worth” in its 2022 PV photo voltaic and vitality storage worth evaluation to higher monitor long-term traits.
NREL’s annual photo voltaic and vitality storage report has revealed estimates of the nationwide common money worth for varied sorts of photo voltaic techniques since 2010. This 12 months’s report features a new benchmark to check long-term photo voltaic and storage price traits to present deviations from pattern as a consequence of inflation. , provide chain coverage and situations.
Whereas short-term worth adjustments may be tough to foretell, a minimal sustainable worth benchmark ought to assist inform coverage actions and choices primarily based on an extended interval, based on the report’s authors.
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The extreme market situations in 2021 and the primary months of 2022 might enhance the prices of photo voltaic costs by 13-15% above what’s predicted by long-term traits, based on the report of NREL worth evaluation for the primary quarter of 2022, launched Nov. 30.
Utility-scale photo voltaic costs are 6% greater within the first quarter of 2022 than in Q1 of 2021, based on the market worth mannequin report – the standard benchmark NREL has reported since 2010 that estimates photo voltaic set up costs primarily based on reported which is the price of capital. However the modeled worth is 14% greater than if photo voltaic costs adopted long-term traits established earlier than the appearance of COVID-19 and different market disruptions.
The minimal sustainable worth that NREL calculates to undertaking what the pattern will seem like is the value of photo voltaic at 87 cents / Wdc in early 2022. There are not any earlier numbers to check to this 12 months’s benchmark.
Nonetheless, the brand new quantity is required due to the quickly rising price of photo voltaic and vitality storage in 2021, based on Vignesh Ramasamy, photo voltaic and storage analyst for NREL. As a result of worth will increase have been so fast — and tied to international occasions like COVID-19 — analysts count on photo voltaic prices to finally return to one thing extra in keeping with longer-term traits. However with out an concept of what long-term traits will seem like sooner or later, it may be tough to make coverage choices, Ramasamy stated.
Exterior analysts additionally agree about the necessity to develop new benchmarking strategies to separate short-term from seemingly longer-term worth traits.
“We had a unprecedented 12 months when it comes to inflation and uncooked materials worth fluctuations that required the trade to query how we method pricing and value evaluation,” stated Yayoi Sekine, head of BloombergNEF vitality storage. “Total, long-term traits ought to nonetheless result in declines, however near-inflation in inputs akin to lithium and nickel has led to greater costs reasonably than decrease costs this 12 months.”
Though the minimal sustainable worth is meant to tell inside coverage choices on the Division of Power, it may also be used for long-term planning inside different organizations, based on Jarett Zuboy, photo voltaic markets and coverage analyst at NREL. Laboratory analysts plan to trace the minimal sustainable worth index till a minimum of 2024, and the approaching years of research will shed extra gentle on which components will most affect the lengthy and quick time period. worth adjustments within the photo voltaic trade, stated Zuboy.
