The Price of Solar Power Just Fell 50% in 16 months – Dubai at $.0299/kWh

May 3rd, 2016

Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand.

Via: electrek:

Dubai received bid of $.0299/kWh for 800MW of solar power. This price represents the lowest yet recorded for solar power (and might not represent the end of the price drops…).

Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) has received 5 bids from international organisations for the third phase of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park, said HE Saeed Mohammed AlTayer, MD & CEO of DEWA. The lowest recorded bid at the opening of the envelopes was US 2.99 cents per kilowatt hour. The next step in the bidding process will review the technical and commercial aspects of the bids to select the best one.

In the USA, in 2014 and with incentives, utility scale solar projects averaged $.05/kWh. On this bid alone, five companies bid below $.045/kW – without subsidies!

In 2015, we saw Dubai sign a deal at a fixed rate of $0.0584 cents over 25 years with no incentives. In the summer of 2015 Autin, TX received almost 1,300MW`of bids at under $.04/kWh. Shortly afterwards, we saw Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s NV Energy agreed to pay $.0387/kWh for power from a 100-megawatt project that First Solar Inc. is developing. Lastly, just this month Enel Green power signed contracts for $.036/kWh in in Mexico and $.03/kWh in Morroco.

The price per kWh just fell 50% – and it did it in less than sixteen months.

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