Utility-Scale Solar, 2023 Edition

Berkeley Lab researchers Mark Bolinger and Joachim (“Jo”) Seel present highlights from the newly released “Utility-Scale Solar, 2023 Edition” report. This report presents analysis of empirical plant-level data from the U.S. fleet of ground-mounted photovoltaic (PV), PV+battery, and concentrating solar-thermal power (CSP) plants with capacities exceeding 5 MWAC. While focused on key developments in 2022, this report also explores longer-term trends in deployment, technology, capital and operating costs, capacity factors, the levelized cost of solar energy (LCOE), power purchase agreement (PPA) prices, and wholesale market value.
The report, published in slide-deck format, is accompanied by an executive summary, a public data file, and interactive data visualizations. All items can be accessed via utilityscalesolar.lbl.gov.

[@davidanalyst671]

why are ppa prices going down if my electric per KWH bill is going up, and texas's grid is even less reliable.

[@qiaorongzhang773]

Inflation😂

[@Carl_in_AZ]

ERCOT has too many grid-following inverters powering off their solar panels. They need to migrate to grid-forming inverters GFM to improve reliability when faults occur. As solar panels continue to improve on efficiency and lower prices with the addition of battery storage to handle peaking ERCOT will add more PPA and eventually stabilize pricing over the next ten years. Keep in mind some grids outside of ERCOT are seeing 163% overproduction on sunny days which they store on batteries for providing peaking power from 4-8pm. Without batteries, ERCOT cannot sell access power to other grids because they are on their own grid.