Solar panel costs have plummeted from $6 per watt in 2000 to just 12 cents today

[rcjordan]

https://www.techspot.com/news/113860-solar-panel-costs-have-plummeted-6-watt-2000.html

[ergophobe]

At this point solar is a mature tech. If it goes from $0.12/kwh to $0.012/kwh that won't make much difference. We're already at the point where the mounting brackets and wires to hook it all up is becoming the cost focus.

But when battery prices drop to a quarter the current price, everything changes. More and more people will just cut their grid connection.

I wonder whether all those huge warehouses and data centers were engineered to hold big solar farms on the roof.

[rcjordan]

California cold-storage provider sues solar businesses over $1 billion rooftop fire

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2026/09/15/california-cold-storage-provider-sues-solar-businesses-over-1-billion-rooftop-fire/

[ergophobe]

New things are always held to a different standard. In other words, when a Waymo crashes, it is news. Waste from windwill blades is an environmental catastrophe, but decommissioned oil rigs are just normal.

So...

from the article:

Industry safety benchmarks cited by UL (Underwriters Laboratories) and the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) place the risk of residential rooftop solar fires in the U.S. at roughly 0.1 fires per 1,000 systems per year, or about 0.01%.

From the National Fire Prevention Association report on dryer fires (a bit old, but the one that popped up).

n 2010-2014, U.S. municipal fire departments responded to an estimated 15,970 home fires
involving clothes dryers or washing machines each year. These fires resulted in annual losses
estimated at 13 civilian deaths, 440 civilian injuries, and $238 million in direct property damage.
As a percentage of all home fires and associated losses, fires involving clothes dryers or washing
machines accounted for 4% of fires, 1% of civilian deaths,

https://content.nfpa.org/-/media/Project/Storefront/Catalog/Files/Research/NFPA-Research/US-Fire-Problem/Fire-causes/oswashersdryers.pdf?rev=a2ca193e4d3f4852973805277ce91d05

The housing stock was roughly 2014 was roughly 134 million housing units, but note that includes housing units without dryers like apartments or even single rooms. The number of single-family homes was about 80 million. So... half of apartments have dryers? Roughly 110 million homes with dryers?

Roughly 0.15 in 1000 homes with dryers experience a dryer fire. Very roughly, 50% higher than the incidence per solar intallation.

(lots of apartments don't have dryers, obviously). So that would be about the same 0.1 fire per 1000 as a solar system, but that number would be higher if