1、Empirical Trends in Project Technology, Cost, Performance, and PPA Pricing in the United States 2019 Edition Authors: Mark Bolinger, Joachim Seel, Dana Robson Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory December 2019 Table of ContentsTable of Contents List of AcronymsList of Acronyms . i i Executive Summa

2、ryExecutive Summary . ii ii 1. Introduction1. Introduction .5 5 2. Utility2. Utility- -Scale Photovoltaics (PV)Scale Photovoltaics (PV) . 1010 2.1 Installation and Technology Trends (690 projects, 24.6 GWAC) 11 Florida was the new national leader in utility-scale solar growth 11 Tracking c-Si projec

3、ts continued to dominate 2018 additions 13 More projects at lower-insolation sites, fixed-tilt mounts crowded out of sunny areas 14 Developers continued to favor larger array capacity relative to inverter capacity 16 Utility-scale PV+battery projects are becoming more common 17 2.2 Installed Project

4、 Prices (641 projects, 22.9 GWAC) 18 Median prices fell to $1.6/WAC ($1.2/WDC) in 2018 18 The price premium for tracking over fixed-tilt installations seemingly disappeared 20 Evidence of economies of scale among our 2018 sample 21 System prices vary by region 22 2.3 Operation and Maintenance Costs

5、(48 projects, 0.9 GWAC) 25 2.4 Capacity Factors (550 projects, 20.0 GWAC) 27 Wide range in capacity factors reflects differences in insolation, tracking, and ILR 27 Since 2013, competing drivers have reduced average capacity factors by project vintage 30 Performance degradation is evident, but is di

6、fficult to assess and attribute at the project level 31 2.5 Power Purchase Agreement Prices (290 contracts, 18.6 GWAC) and LCOE (640 projects, 22.9 GWAC) 34 PPA prices have fallen dramatically, in all regions of the country 36 An increasing number of PPAs (and projects in general) are including batt

7、ery storage 39 The incremental PPA price adder for storage depends on the size of the battery 42 Despite record-low PPA prices, solar faces stiff competition from both wind and natural gas 44 Levelized PPA prices track the LCOE of utility-scale PV reasonably well 46 2.6 Wholesale Market Value 49 Sol

8、ar curtailment is a function of market penetration and transmission constraints 49 In most regions of the United States, solar provides above-average market value 51 Reduced by the ITC, solar PPA prices are generally comparable to solars market value 54 3. Utility3. Utility- -Scale Concentrating Sol

9、arScale Concentrating Solar- -Thermal Power (CSP)Thermal Power (CSP) . 5757 3.1 Technology and Installation Trends Among the CSP Project Population (16 projects, 1.8 GWAC) 57 3.2 Installed Project Prices (7 projects, 1.4 GWAC) 58 3.3 Capacity Factors (13 projects, 1.7 GWAC) 60 3.4 Power Purchase Agr

10、eement (PPA) Prices (6 projects, 1.3 GWAC) 61 4. Conclusions and Future Outlook4. Conclusions and Future Outlook . 6363 ReferencesReferences . 6666 Data Sources 66 Literature Sources 67 AppendixAppendix . . 7070 Total Operational PV Population 70 Total Operational CSP Population 71 O with some limit

11、ed exceptions (including Figure 1 and Chapter 4), the report does not discuss forecasts or seek to project future trends. The home page for this reportutilityscalesolar.lbl.gov houses an Excel workbook that provides all of the publicly available data for each of the reports figures, as well as a num

12、ber of interactive data visualizations that enable one to explore the data in different ways. The Federal Investment Tax Credit (“ITC”) The business energy investment tax credit, or ITC, in Section 48 of the U.S. tax code has been available to commercial solar projects for many years. Though origina

13、lly a 10% credit, the Energy Policy Act of 2005 temporarily increased the size of the credit to 30% starting in 2006. In October 2008, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 extended the 30% credit through the end of 2016, and in December 2015, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2016 e

14、xtended it once again, through 2019. This most-recent extension brought several other changes as well. For commercial projects, the prior requirement that a project be “placed in service” (i.e., operational) by the reversion deadline was relaxed to enable projects that merely “start construction” by

15、 the deadline to also qualify. Moreover, rather than reverting from 30% directly to 10% in 2020, the credit will instead gradually phase down to 10% over several years: to 26% in 2020, 22% in 2021, and finally 10% for projects that start construction in 2022 or thereafter. Moreover, in June 2018, th

16、e IRS issued “safe harbor” guidance clarifying that any project that qualifies for the 30%, 26%, or 22% ITC by starting construction in 2019, 2020, or 2021, respectively, will have until the end of 2023 (i.e., up to 4 years for projects that start construction in 2019) to achieve commercial operatio

17、ns without having to demonstrate a continuous work effort. In practice, this safe harbor guidance likely means that most utility-scale solar projects deployed through 2023 will continue to benefit from the full 30% ITC. Finally, as of October 2019, there were ongoing efforts including bills introduc

18、ed in both the U.S. House and Senateto extend the 30% ITC for another five years, before the step- down begins. The 30% ITC has aided the utility-scale solar market over the years by enabling lower PPA prices that make solar more affordable, leading to greater deployment. One visible testament to it

19、s importance, at least historically, is 2016s record spike in deployment (see Figure 1), which was driven by the scheduled end-of-2016 reversion of the ITC to 10% (though, as noted above, that reversion was ultimately deferred by the late-December 2015 extension through 2019). Barring yet another ex

20、tension, similar high deployment levels are expected over the next few years, in advance of the step down to 10% (Figure 1). 9 Defining “Utility-Scale” Determining which electric power projects qualify as “utility-scale” (as opposed to commercial- or residential-scale) can be a challenge, particular

21、ly as utilities begin to focus more on distributed generation. For solar PV projects, this challenge is exacerbated by the relative homogeneity of the underlying technology. For example, unlike with wind power, where there is a clear difference between utility-scale and residential wind turbine tech

22、nology, with solar, very similar PV modules to those used in a 5 kW residential rooftop system might also be deployed in a 100 MW ground-mounted utility-scale project. The question of where to draw the line is, therefore, rather subjective. Though not exhaustive, below are three differentand perhaps

23、 equally validperspectives on what is considered to be “utility-scale”: Through its Form EIA-860, the Energy Information Administration (“EIA”) collects and reports data on all generating plants of at least 1 MW of capacity, regardless of ownership or whether interconnected in front of or behind the

24、 meter (note: this report draws heavily upon EIA data for such projects). In their Solar Market Insight reports, Wood Mackenzie and SEIA (“Wood Mackenzie/SEIA”) define utility-scale by offtake arrangement rather than by project size: any project owned by or that sells electricity directly to a utili

25、ty (rather than consuming it onsite) is considered a “utility-scale” project. This definition includes even relatively small projects (e.g., 100 kW) that sell electricity through a feed-in tariff (“FiT”) or avoided cost contract (Munsell 2014). At the other end of the spectrum, some financiers defin

26、e utility-scale in terms of investment size, and consider only those projects that are large enough to attract capital on their own (rather than as part of a larger portfolio of projects) to be “utility-scale” (Sternthal 2013). For PV, such financiers might consider a 40 MW (i.e., $50 million) proje

27、ct to be the minimum size threshold for utility-scale. Though each of these three approaches has its merits, this report adopts yet a different approach: utility-scale solar is defined herein as any ground-mounted solar project that is larger than 5 MWAC (separately, ground-mounted PV projects of 5

28、MWAC or less, along with roof- mounted systems of all sizes, are analyzed in LBNLs annual Tracking the Sun report series). This definition is grounded in consideration of the four main types of data analyzed in this report: installed prices, O Fiorelli and Zuercher - Martinson 2013). This report use

29、s inverter loading ratio, or ILR. 16 This is analogous to the boost in capacity factor achieved by a wind turbine when the size of the rotor increases relative to the turbines nameplate capacity rating. This decline in “specific power” (W/m2 of rotor swept area) causes the generator to operate close

30、r to (or at) its peak rating more often, thereby increasing capacity factor. 17 Power clipping, also known as power limiting, is comparable to spilling excess water over a dam (rather than running it through the turbines) or feathering a wind turbine blade. In the case of solar, however, clipping oc

31、curs electronically rather than physically: as the DC input to the inverter approaches maximum capacity, the inverter moves away from the maximum power point so that the array operates less efficiently (Advanced Energy 2014; Fiorelli and Zuercher - Martinson 2013). In this sense, clipping is a bit o

32、f a misnomer, in that the inverter never really even “sees” the excess DC powerrather, it is simply not generated in the first place. Only potential generation is lost. 17 projects, the median ILR has increased over time, from around 1.2 in 2010 to 1.33 in 2018. Fixed- tilt projects commonly feature

33、 higher ILRs than tracking projects, consistent with the notion that fixed-tilt projects have more to gain from boosting the ILR in order to achieve a less-peaky, “tracking-like” daily production profile. Since 2013, however, the median ILR of tracking and fixed-tilt projects has been nearly the sam

34、e, and in 2016 and 2017 tracking projects even outpaced fixed-tilt installations (1.33 vs. 1.31). 2018 projects reverted again to the traditional relationships (1.41 for fixed-tilt, 1.31 for tracking), pushed by high-ILR projects in Florida and the Northeast. The overall ILR range among all projects

35、 in 2018 remains quite large (1.14 to 1.59), pointing to continued diversity in design practices. Figure 7. Trends in Inverter Loading Ratio by Mounting Type and Installation Year Utility-scale PV+battery projects are becoming more common Despite an increasing number of announcements about new PV+ba

36、ttery projects in the pipeline (see, for example, Table 3, Figure 37, and Figure 38), relatively few projects have been built to date. In 2018, seven new projects featuring batteries connected to utility-scale PV plants came online (see Figure 3). Three of these new batteries were added to existing

37、PV-only projects that came online in 2016 (foreshadowing the potential for a large retrofit market) while the other four were installed concurrently with new PV projects. All seven of these new storage projects use lithium-ion batteries, sized to match 5-135% of the corresponding PV capacity (in MWA

38、C terms). Most focus predominantly on the ability to shift energy for later use (up to 5 hours at full capacity), while the primary purpose of one system is the provision of grid reliability services in a region that is home to many large renewable energy projects. 18 2.2 Installed Project Prices (6

39、41 projects, 22.9 GWAC) This section analyzes installed price data from a large sample of the overall utility-scale PV project population described in the previous section.18 It begins with an overview of installed prices for PV projects over time, and then breaks out those prices by mounting type (

40、fixed-tilt vs. tracking), project size, and region. A text box at the end of this section compares our top-down empirical price data with a variety of estimates derived from bottom-up cost models. Sources of installed price information include the Energy Information Administration (EIA), the Treasur

41、y Departments Section 1603 Grant database, data from applicable state rebate and incentive programs, state regulatory filings, FERC Form 1 filings, corporate financial filings, interviews with developers and project owners, and finally, the trade press. All prices are reported in real 2018 dollars.

42、In general, only fully operational projects for which all individual phases were in operation at the end of 2018 are included in the sample19i.e., by definition, our sample is backward-looking and therefore may not reflect installed price levels for projects that are completed or contracted in 2019

43、and beyond. Moreover, reported installed prices within our backward-looking sample may reflect transactions (e.g., entering into an Engineering, Procurement, and Construction or “EPC” contract) that occurred several years prior to project completion. In some cases, those transactions may have been n

44、egotiated on a forward-looking basis, reflecting anticipated future costs at the time of project construction. In other cases, they may have been based on contemporaneous costs (or a conservative projection of costs), in which case the reported installed price data may not fully capture recent fluctuations in component costs or other