Bob, do you think solar will stay this cheap, now that one of the biggest Chinese manufacturers has gone bankrupt?
Solar panel prices are likely to bounce around a little bit for a while and then start their way toward cheaper. The panel industry has reached a stage that most industries reach when the profit margin shrinks and the least efficient producers are forced out of business.
Right now manufacturers are selling at little or no profit in order to keep product moving. Some are probably selling at a loss either in an attempt to stay in business or at least recoup some of their investment as they go under.
But there's still room for panel manufacturing prices to go lower. I think it was First Solar who stated that they expect their manufacturing costs to go below $0.40/watt by 2017. (I'll try to find that and post.)
As the surviving manufacturers increase volume they can spread costs over more units and further lower per watt costs. Apparently there is more advanced machinery waiting to be installed which will also drop costs.
Then, as panel efficiency increases prices can drop. If you start making 20% efficient panels in place of 18% panels you pack more watts into the same amount of frame, glass cover, connection box, labor and shipping.
Only a short time ago panel prices were the largest part of a system. That rapidly changed over the last ~3 years. Now panels are selling around $0.60/watt. If you look at Germany's average installed system price of $2/W you can see that panels have moved from >50% of system price to ~25%.
Now Spain has apparently figured out how to cut the balance of system (BOS) prices even further.
I don't see either panel or BOS prices rising. I think we're about to see an explosion in solar installations and economies of scale will take prices even lower.