Is Photovoltaic Moore Law Really on Track?
Last week, based on an IEEE photovoltaics conference that had just taken place in San Diego, I reported on some positive developments: a kind of Moore’s law allegedly at work, a better outlook for first-generation silicon cells, and a growing expectation that solar electricity may be commercially competitive in some parts of the world by 2015. It appears that I misstated and overstated the case for a photovoltaic Moore’s law, having–I’m most embarrassed to say–misread one of my own previous blog entries. I said last week that PV costs per watt had dropped from about $7 in 2004 to $4-5 in 2007, but “Hal” pointed out in a comment posted May 22 that my previous blog in fact cited 2007 PV costs of $7.6 or $6.2 (depending on whose numbers you believe). That would be tantamount to a cost reduction of 15 percent at most, and perhaps none at all–not the 40 percent reduction I thought I had discerned, consistent with the “photovoltaic Moore’s law” that postulates a 20 percent reduction with
