The price of solar modules declined by over 99% since 1976
In most places in the world, power from new renewables is now cheaper than power from new fossil fuels.
Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?
The answer: learning curves. For renewables and other technologies that follow learning curves, with each doubling of the cumulative installed capacity their price declines by the same fraction.
The price of electricity from fossil fuels, however, does not follow learning curves.
This means we should expect that the price difference between expensive fossil fuels and cheap renewables will become even larger in the future.
Dataset
| Entity | Year | Solar photovoltaic module price | Solar photovoltaic cumulative capacity |
|---|---|---|---|
| World | 1975 | 130.70 | 0.54 |
| World | 1976 | 98.34 | 1.08 |
| World | 1977 | 71.74 | 2.16 |
| World | 1978 | 50.76 | 3.51 |
| World | 1979 | 42.65 | 5.235 |
| World | 1980 | 36.14 | 7.965 |
| World | 1981 | 28.90 | 12.88 |
| World | 1982 | 25.96 | 19.405 |
| World | 1983 | 20.96 | 29.255 |
| World | 1984 | 19.48 | 46.705 |
| World | 1985 | 17.00 | 66.455 |
| World | 1986 | 14.06 | 89.155 |
| World | 1987 | 11.96 | 113.655 |
| World | 1988 | 11.17 | 140.6 |
| World | 1989 | 11.54 | 173.35 |
| World | 1990 | 11.94 | 212.3 |
| World | 1991 | 11.06 | 257.15 |
| World | 1992 | 10.30 | 309.05 |
| World | 1993 | 9.64 | 365.9 |
| World | 1994 | 9.11 | 423.75 |
| World | 1995 | 8.43 | 489.25 |
| World | 1996 | 7.88 | 565 |
| World | 1997 | 7.85 | 650.8 |
| World | 1998 | 7.08 | 771 |
| World | 1999 | 6.54 | 914.5 |
| World | 2000 | 6.41 | 1103 |
| World | 2001 | 6.21 | 1373 |
| World | 2002 | 5.67 | 1738.5 |
| World | 2003 | 5.39 | 2229.2056 |
| World | 2004 | 4.52 | 2919.536 |
| World | 2005 | 4.57 | 4394.98 |
| World | 2006 | 4.98 | 5918.051 |
| World | 2007 | 5.02 | 8276.802 |
| World | 2008 | 4.57 | 14451.045 |
| World | 2009 | 3.06 | 22507.973 |
| World | 2010 | 2.39 | 39915.133 |
| World | 2011 | 1.96 | 71700.945 |
| World | 2012 | 1.06 | 100908.08 |
| World | 2013 | 0.81 | 136388.8 |
| World | 2014 | 0.75 | 174794.47 |
| World | 2015 | 0.70 | 222507.98 |
| World | 2016 | 0.64 | 294246.06 |
| World | 2017 | 0.54 | 388746.47 |
| World | 2018 | 0.48 | 483658.25 |
| World | 2019 | 0.44 | 585589.94 |
| World | 2020 | 0.35 | 717680.6 |
| World | 2021 | 0.32 | 862526.4 |
| World | 2022 | 0.35 | 1060925.5 |
| World | 2023 | 0.31 | 1405989.1 |
Data sources
IRENA (2024); Nemet (2009); Farmer and Lafond (2016) – with major processing by Our World in Data. “Solar photovoltaic module price” [dataset]. IRENA, “Renewable Power Generation Costs”; Nemet, “Interim monitoring of cost dynamics for publicly supported energy technologies”; Farmer and Lafond, “How predictable is technological progress?” [original data].
