In February 2011, the Department of Energy (DoE) launched its SunShot Initiative to make solar energy cost-competitive with traditional energy sources by the end of the decade. DoE has just announced that utility-scale PV industry is more than 60 % of the way to achieving SunShot's target of $0.06/kWh. The average price for a utility-scale PV project has dropped from about $0.21/kWh in 2010 to $0.11/kWh at the end of 2013. According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), the average price of electricity is about $0.12/kWh in the U.S.
Reductions in the cost of electricity are based on estimates of the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) which a measure of the national average of electricity cost based on certain assumptions regarding financing costs and generation availability projected over the life of a generating asset. The LCOE model provides a benchmark for measuring relative changes in the price of electric power.
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