They Said Solar Panels Wouldn't Get Cheaper. They Did.

The news item claimed that the fall in solar panel prices was not over: according to a Canadian Solar forecast, production cost could drop from 47 US cents per watt at the end of 2014 to 36 cents by the end of 2017, and the panels would become more powerful. That period is now over; for an investment today, the question is rather how much of the electricity produced the house actually uses.

What did the news item predict?

hvg.hu, citing RenewEconomy, reported on the market outlook of Canadian Solar, founded in 2001; at the time the company was among the world's three largest solar panel manufacturers. The main points of the forecast:

• Further price falls. Over three years solar panel prices could fall by another 25 percent, which could boost demand even in previously less active markets such as Chile or the Middle East.
• More powerful panels. The output of a panel could rise from 255 watts to as much as 310 watts, and the typical 16–17 percent efficiency could improve to around 20 percent.
• Bigger production, cheaper systems. If production grows to 5.5 GW a year, roughly double, the cost level of solar systems could fall by 20 percent.
• Storage and electric cars. Demand could also be raised by residential energy storage – the news item gave the Tesla Powerwall battery as an example – and by the spread of electric vehicles.

The Hungarian part of the news item also contained an opinion on the product fee then applied to solar panels and on energy policy. We do not repeat it: the regulatory part applied to the time of the news, and the political assessment is not professional content.

What does this mean today for a solar investment?

• Panels really did get more powerful. The sizing guide of MVM Optimum today works with an average panel of about 400 Wp, which is more than the 310 watts expected in the news item for the end of 2017.
• Self-consumption became the key factor. From 1 January 2024, for new household systems the electricity fed in and the electricity drawn are settled separately (gross metering). As a result, everything that helps use the electricity produced on site has gained value – including the home battery, which the news item still mentioned as a novelty.
• With electric heating, winter decides. Heating consumes the most when solar panels produce the least, so the size of the system must be matched to winter demand as well.

Our solar page covers planning solar panels and electric heating together. Our article on home energy storage covers battery storage, and our piece on solar panels in winter gives details on winter production. The other two solar news items of the era are covered in our summaries The World Is Racing Toward Cheap Electricity and Solar Panel Prices Are Falling, Yet Adoption Is Not Spreading Enough.