What are the technological advancements that have made solar power so much more economically viable over the last decade or so?
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Slight incremental improvements over the last few decades have made manufacturing less expensive, and solar panels more efficient. The combo of those two meant that it finally hit a tipping point and became financially worthwhile about 10 years ago (it was just too expensive for most people prior). With that came ‘manufacturing at scale’. When a factory is able to sell hundreds of panels a day, they get better deals on all the ‘per unit’ costs. Shipping, custom parts, extrusions, and manufacturing machines all go down in cost the more of them you order at a time.
And then there’s Tesla. There may be a trash human running the company, but they have done an absolute ton to get the prices in the US down to something manageable for normal people.
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