The conventional start of the photovoltaic module price series
The year from which the standard long-run module price series is usually drawn, at a price of the order of a hundred United States dollars per watt in the money of the day. It is a convention of the data rather than an event in the technology: 1976 is simply where a continuous, comparable price record begins. It matters because it fixes the baseline against which the roughly three-order-of-magnitude decline is measured, and because that baseline is what makes the decline legible as a learning curve rather than as a series of unrelated improvements.
Historical — it happened, and the record is settled.
Subjects
- Photovoltaic solar generation · technology · global; manufacturing concentrated in China · not located
- The experience (learning) curve · phenomenon · not located
Evidence
Partly verified — Core facts are sourced; some optional detail is deliberately absent.
Empirically grounded technology forecasts and the energy transition
Supports the finding that probabilistic forecasts built on observed cost-versus-cumulative-deployment relationships have outperformed the expert and official projections used in energy planning, and that solar, wind and storage costs have fallen at rates those projections repeatedly failed to anticipate. V55 verification basis: the paper was not retrieved in this session; the citation follows the reference declared in the Journey catalogue and the substance is stated from author knowledge. The fitted learning rates and their intervals were NOT read and are not quoted.
Joule (Cell Press) · 2022 · Partly verified
R. Way, M. C. Ings, J. D. Farmer and P. Mealy, Joule, volume 6, 2022, page 2057 onwards
Recorded on Photovoltaic solar generation
- Wright publishes the airframe cost-quantity relationship
- The conventional start of the photovoltaic module price series
- Germany's Renewable Energy Sources Act takes effect
- Chinese manufacturing takes over the photovoltaic supply chain
- The first Global Stocktake calls for tripling renewable capacity
- Vogtle Unit 4 enters commercial operation
Related
Related because they share a subject in the Atlas — never because the text looks similar.
- Vogtle Unit 4 enters commercial operation · 2024-04
- The first Global Stocktake calls for tripling renewable capacity · 2023-12
- Chinese manufacturing takes over the photovoltaic supply chain · c. 2008–2013
- Germany's Renewable Energy Sources Act takes effect · 2000-04-01
- Wright publishes the airframe cost-quantity relationship · 1936