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Solar farms (on land) are far cheaper to install and maintain than rooftop. Utility scale farm might be ~$1/Watt for installation. https://www.nrel.gov/solar/m

Solar farms (on land) are far cheaper to install and maintain than rooftop. Utility scale farm might be ~$1/Watt for installation. https://www.nrel.gov/solar/market-research-analysis/solar-installed-system-cost.html https://www.nrel.gov/solar/market-research-analysis/solar-in... Residential is ~$3/Watt. Commercial rooftop is somewhere between but still more expensive than a solar farm. Rooftop has the advantages that it delivers where the load is, and there are often subsidies available, plus some marketing kudos. But if just considering land cost by installing rooftop instead of solar farms is usually not an economic tradeoff. And note that agrivoltaics (dual use solar+agriculture) is more expensive than pure solar farming: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/03/26/cost-comparison-between-agrivoltaics-and-ground-mounted-pv/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/03/26/cost-comparison-betwe...

bruce511 2y ago
>> Residential is ~$3/Watt Installation costs are going to depend a lot on your location, roof type and to an extent size. My (residential) install (9600w) was around 60c per watt. Ymmv
- robocat 2y ago
  The Lazard report is pretty reliable, some 2023 figures for LCOE from: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2023/04/14/average-solar-lcoe-increases-for-first-time-this-year/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2023/04/14/average-solar-lcoe-in... Utility-scale solar PV comes in anywhere from $24/MWh to $96/MWh Unsubsidized residential rooftop PV has an LCOE between $117/MWh and $282/MWh, the LCOE of community and commercial and industrial (C&I) solar ranges between $49/MWh and $185/MWh. When factoring in federal tax subsidies under the US Inflation Reduction Act, including domestic contest provisions, rooftop PV comes in at $74/MWh to $229/MWh, and community/C&I rooftop PV at $32/MWh to $155/MWh. It is hard to find good comparative figures with similar assumptions (e.g. incentives, location, year), but the above give a ballpark.

bruce511 2y ago

>> Residential is ~$3/Watt Installation costs are going to depend a lot on your location, roof type and to an extent size. My (residential) install (9600w) was around 60c per watt. Ymmv

robocat 2y ago
The Lazard report is pretty reliable, some 2023 figures for LCOE from: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2023/04/14/average-solar-lcoe-increases-for-first-time-this-year/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2023/04/14/average-solar-lcoe-in... Utility-scale solar PV comes in anywhere from $24/MWh to $96/MWh Unsubsidized residential rooftop PV has an LCOE between $117/MWh and $282/MWh, the LCOE of community and commercial and industrial (C&I) solar ranges between $49/MWh and $185/MWh. When factoring in federal tax subsidies under the US Inflation Reduction Act, including domestic contest provisions, rooftop PV comes in at $74/MWh to $229/MWh, and community/C&I rooftop PV at $32/MWh to $155/MWh. It is hard to find good comparative figures with similar assumptions (e.g. incentives, location, year), but the above give a ballpark.