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A comment on India has launched a 648MW solar power plant. Parent comment

Re:India has launched a 648MW solar power plant by mirekrusin on Wednesday November 30, 2016 @11:03AM (#13071783)
Yes, must be mainly that: labour cost + efficiency improvement (I think they said efficiency improved 80% over last 7 years; can't check because the website is down?). Impressive.

What I hope is that early adopters are not penalised so much by this fact. Ie. that panels are easily swappable (scaffolding and the rest can stay as is; maybe batteries need to be swapped) and there will be marked for old, less efficient panels (and used batteries?) to be sold to late adopters or subsidised recycling?

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Re:India has launched a 648MW solar power plant by philipkglass on Wednesday November 30, 2016 @02:16PM (#13073724)
It is cost efficiency that has improved dramatically in the last 7 years, not device efficiency. Maybe 7 years ago you bought a module with a 14% sunlight-to-electricity conversion efficiency and today the same manufacturer would have a 16% efficient panel in the same part of their lineup. That is not a dramatic change. It's certainly not worth the cost of replacing panels that work just fine with this year's model.

You'd pay 75% less per watt of panel capacity today compared to 7 years ago, due to manufacturing improvements up and down the supply chain plus brutal market competition between manufacturers. That is a dramatic change.

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