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The big Japanese electronics companies have been spending million every year to ramp up production. As the real price of solar cells goes down, they gradually become competitive in more and more niches. At one point they were so expensive east central europe they could only compete in the satellite market. Then prices east central europe dropped so they compete in really remote areas. Now you can't go down a highway without seeing a solar powered road construction sign. Even with all of the price drops, east central europe solar cells are still far to expensive to compete economically for the suburban roof market--about 3 to 4 times as expensive as utility power in my neck of the woods. Solar cells are not totally out of reach for ecologically minded upper-middle class people anymore though, and even without the kind of breakthroughs detailed in this article solar cells will continue to get cheaper and more common. To put it in football terms, for the last 25 years solar cells have been making steady progress of the '4 yards and a cloud of dust' variety.
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