The Thousandfold Fall
In 1975 a watt of solar panel cost about as much as a nice dinner for two. Today it costs about the same as a stick of gum. No energy technology in history has gotten cheaper this fast, for this long.
cheaper. A solar module cost $132 per watt in 1975 and $0.12 in 2025, in constant 2025 dollars. That is a 99.9% fall. OWID / IRENA / Nemet
Five decades, six rungs down
Each step to the right on this log scale is a fall of roughly ten times. The panel market has gone down three of those steps.
Module price only (not installation), US$ per watt of peak capacity, inflation-adjusted to 2025 dollars.
A straight line on a log chart
For fifty years the price has dropped by a roughly steady percentage. Each doubling of the world’s installed solar has cut module prices by about 20%.
Log scale. Pre-2010 values are global estimates (Nemet; Farmer & Lafond); from 2010 they are European benchmark prices reported by IRENA.
Cheap panels, everywhere
As prices collapsed, installations exploded: from 41 GW in 2010 to almost 2,400 GW in 2025, about 58 times more.
Up eightfold in ten years. Sources: Ember 2025, 2026.
Now among the cheapest power ever built
Lifetime cost per kilowatt-hour for new plants commissioned in 2024. In 2010 solar cost almost ten times as much as it does now.
Levelised cost of electricity (LCOE), utility scale, 2024 US$, IRENA. The 2010 bar is cut off: its true length runs four times past the axis. *Fossil value is derived from IRENA’s “41% cheaper” statement and is an estimate.
What a cheap watt changes
Price is now not the main brake on solar. Grids, storage and supply chains are.
terawatt-hours of solar electricity in 2025, up 30% in one year: 8.7% of all the world’s power.
of new renewable projects commissioned in 2024 produced power more cheaply than the cheapest new fossil-fuel option.
of every stage of panel manufacturing, from polysilicon to finished module, sits in China. That makes cheap solar a supply-chain risk too.
What you can do
The panel isn’t the expensive part anymore. Permits, wiring, labour and grid connection are.
Get real quotes
Rooftop prices vary widely. Utility-scale solar cost $691 per kW installed worldwide in 2024, 87% less than in 2010. Compare at least three local quotes before you buy.
Back the grid
Cheap midday power needs storage and transmission to be useful at night. Local support for batteries and power lines is now the bottleneck.
Watch the learning curve
A ~20% drop per doubling is a pattern, not a law. Batteries, heat pumps and electrolysers are following similar curves.
Sources & notes
- Module prices 1975–2025, constant 2025 US$/W. Our World in Data, “Solar photovoltaic panel prices” (2026), compiling Nemet (2009), Farmer & Lafond (2016) and IRENA Renewable Power Generation Costs 2024/2025. Pre-2010 = global estimates; 2010 onward = European benchmark (pvXchange). The 1,100× ratio = $132.38 ÷ $0.12.
- Learning rate. Our World in Data, analysis of the same series: ~20% price drop per doubling of cumulative installed capacity.
- Installed capacity 2010–2025. IRENA Renewable Capacity Statistics 2026, via Our World in Data.
- Solar share of electricity; 2,778 TWh, +30%. Ember, Global Electricity Review 2025 (2024 data: 6.9%) and Global Electricity Review 2026 (2025 data: 8.7%, 2,778 TWh).
- LCOE 2010 & 2024; installed cost; 91%; 41% cheaper. IRENA, Renewable Power Generation Costs in 2024 (July 2025): solar $0.417 → $0.043/kWh; $691/kW installed (−87% vs 2010); 91% of new renewables cheaper than the cheapest new fossil option.
- “Cheapest new fossil” bar. DERIVED, not directly reported: IRENA states solar ($0.043) was 41% cheaper than the lowest-cost fossil alternative, implying ≈ $0.073/kWh. Shown as an estimate.
- China’s manufacturing share. IEA, Solar PV Global Supply Chains special report (2022): China >80% of every manufacturing stage; ~95% projected for polysilicon, ingots and wafers.
- Illustrative comparisons. “Dinner for two” and “stick of gum” in the dek, and the calculator / phone comparisons in the carousel, are loose everyday analogies, not measured figures. “What $1 bought” (0.008 W in 1975; 8.3 W in 2025) is computed as 1 ÷ the module price.