Surprisingly various improvements led to dramatically cheaper photo voltaic panels
by Adam Zewe | MIT Information
Boston MA (SPX) Aug 13, 2025
The price of photo voltaic panels has dropped by greater than 99 p.c because the Seventies, enabling widespread adoption of photovoltaic programs that convert daylight into electrical energy.
A brand new MIT research drills down on particular improvements that enabled such dramatic value reductions, revealing that technical advances throughout an online of various analysis efforts and industries performed a pivotal function.
The findings may assist renewable power corporations make more practical R and D funding selections and help policymakers in figuring out areas to prioritize to spur development in manufacturing and deployment.
The researchers’ modeling strategy exhibits that key improvements usually originated outdoors the photo voltaic sector, together with advances in semiconductor fabrication, metallurgy, glass manufacturing, oil and fuel drilling, building processes, and even authorized domains.
“Our outcomes present simply how intricate the method of value enchancment is, and the way a lot scientific and engineering advances, usually at a really fundamental stage, are on the coronary heart of those value reductions. Quite a lot of data was drawn from totally different domains and industries, and this community of information is what makes these applied sciences enhance,” says research senior creator Jessika Trancik, a professor in MIT’s Institute for Information, Methods, and Society.
Trancik is joined on the paper by co-lead authors Goksin Kavlak, a former IDSS graduate scholar and postdoc who’s now a senior power affiliate on the Brattle Group; Magdalena Klemun, a former IDSS graduate scholar and postdoc who’s now an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins College; former MIT postdoc Ajinkya Kamat; in addition to Brittany Smith and Robert Margolis of the Nationwide Renewable Power Laboratory. The analysis seems in PLOS ONE.
Figuring out improvements
This work builds on mathematical fashions that the researchers beforehand developed that tease out the consequences of engineering applied sciences on the price of photovoltaic (PV) modules and programs.
On this research, the researchers aimed to dig even deeper into the scientific advances that drove these value declines.
They mixed their quantitative value mannequin with an in depth, qualitative evaluation of improvements that affected the prices of PV system supplies, manufacturing steps, and deployment processes.
“Our quantitative value mannequin guided the qualitative evaluation, permitting us to look intently at improvements in areas which are onerous to measure as a consequence of a scarcity of quantitative knowledge,” Kavlak says.
Constructing on earlier work figuring out key value drivers – such because the variety of photo voltaic cells per module, wiring effectivity, and silicon wafer space – the researchers carried out a structured scan of the literature for improvements prone to have an effect on these drivers. Subsequent, they grouped these improvements to establish patterns, revealing clusters that decreased prices by enhancing supplies or prefabricating parts to streamline manufacturing and set up. Lastly, the group tracked business origins and timing for every innovation, and consulted area consultants to zero in on probably the most important improvements.
All advised, they recognized 81 distinctive improvements that affected PV system prices since 1970, from enhancements in antireflective coated glass to the implementation of totally on-line allowing interfaces.
“With improvements, you possibly can all the time go to a deeper stage, right down to issues like uncooked supplies processing strategies, so it was difficult to know when to cease. Having that quantitative mannequin to floor our qualitative evaluation actually helped,” Trancik says.
They selected to separate PV module prices from so-called balance-of-system (BOS) prices, which cowl issues like mounting programs, inverters, and wiring.
PV modules, that are wired collectively to kind photo voltaic panels, are mass-produced and will be exported, whereas many BOS parts are designed, constructed, and bought on the native stage.
“By analyzing improvements each on the BOS stage and inside the modules, we establish the several types of improvements which have emerged in these two elements of PV know-how,” Kavlak says.
BOS prices rely extra on smooth applied sciences, nonphysical parts comparable to allowing procedures, which have contributed considerably much less to PV’s previous value enchancment in comparison with {hardware} improvements.
“Typically, it comes right down to delays. Time is cash, and you probably have delays on building websites and unpredictable processes, that impacts these balance-of-system prices,” Trancik says.
Improvements comparable to automated allowing software program, which flags code-compliant programs for fast-track approval, present promise. Although not but quantified on this research, the group’s framework may help future evaluation of their financial affect and comparable improvements that streamline deployment processes.
Interconnected industries
The researchers discovered that improvements from the semiconductor, electronics, metallurgy, and petroleum industries performed a significant function in lowering each PV and BOS prices, however BOS prices have been additionally impacted by improvements in software program engineering and electrical utilities.
Noninnovation elements, like effectivity positive aspects from bulk buying and the buildup of information within the solar energy business, additionally decreased some value variables.
As well as, whereas most PV panel improvements originated in analysis organizations or business, many BOS improvements have been developed by metropolis governments, U.S. states, or skilled associations.
“I knew there was lots happening with this know-how, however the variety of all these fields and the way intently linked they’re, and the truth that we are able to clearly see that community by way of this evaluation, was fascinating,” Trancik says.
“PV was very well-positioned to soak up improvements from different industries – due to the precise timing, bodily compatibility, and supportive insurance policies to adapt improvements for PV purposes,” Klemun provides.
The evaluation additionally reveals the function higher computing energy may play in lowering BOS prices by way of advances like automated engineering overview programs and distant website evaluation software program.
“By way of data spillovers, what we have seen to this point in PV might actually simply be the start,” Klemun says, pointing to the increasing function of robotics and AI-driven digital instruments in driving future value reductions and high quality enhancements.
Along with their qualitative evaluation, the researchers demonstrated how this system may very well be used to estimate the quantitative affect of a specific innovation if one has the numerical knowledge to plug into the associated fee equation.
As an example, utilizing details about materials costs and manufacturing procedures, they estimate that wire sawing, a way which was launched within the Eighties, led to an general PV system value lower of $5 per watt by lowering silicon losses and growing throughput throughout fabrication.
“By way of this retrospective evaluation, you study one thing useful for future technique as a result of you possibly can see what labored and what did not work, and the fashions can be utilized prospectively. It is usually helpful to know what adjoining sectors might assist help enchancment in a specific know-how,” Trancik says.
Shifting ahead, the researchers plan to use this system to a variety of applied sciences, together with different renewable power programs. In addition they need to additional research smooth know-how to establish improvements or processes that would speed up value reductions.
“Though the method of technological innovation might seem to be a black field, we have proven that you may research it similar to every other phenomena,” Trancik says.
This analysis is funded, partially, by the U.S. Division of Power Photo voltaic Energies Expertise Workplace.
Analysis Report:“Nature of innovations affecting photovoltaic system costs”
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