5 ms·

I'd guess much of it is labour and land cost.

• maxerickson 10y ago
  It's 9.5 square miles. 6080 acres. Even in California scrub land isn't going to cost $10,000 an acre, so the land costs of the US project shouldn't exceed $100 million. (for example, here's a much larger area in the same county for $35 million: http://www.landwatch.com/San-Luis-Obispo-County-California-Farms-and-Ranches-for-sale/pid/25024562 http://www.landwatch.com/San-Luis-Obispo-County-California-F... ) edit: tack on another couple hundred million for power line easements and you still haven't explained all that much of the cost difference. And I really doubt that they spent anywhere near $300 million on land and easements.
• legulere 10y ago
  Also falling prices for photovoltaics probably, the topaz farm was completed two years ago.
  • yummyfajitas 10y ago
    Extrapolating a few graphs I found via a quick google search, you don't get a 5x drop in costs due to cheaper solar panels. http://solarcellcentral.com/images/module_prices.jpg http://solarcellcentral.com/images/module_prices.jpg http://www.data360.org/temp/dsg605_500_350.jpg http://www.data360.org/temp/dsg605_500_350.jpg http://costofsolar.com/management/uploads/2013/12/solar-pv-cost-trend.png http://costofsolar.com/management/uploads/2013/12/solar-pv-c...
• philipkglass 10y ago
  In 2015 in the US, installation labor accounted for only 11% of the cost for utility scale fixed tilt PV farms like this one ($0.19 out of $1.77 per watt project costs): http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy15osti/64746.pdf http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy15osti/64746.pdf Land costs were less than 2% ($0.03 per watt).