The Costs of Solar Power from Space

Delivering power from space using photovoltaic panels is incredibly costly and not a reasonable option for the collection of energy today, nor likely in future.  On earth, the cost of installing solar modules (BoS) nearly equals the cost of the module itself, and will become a bigger share of the total costs in the future. Presumingly, the costs of installing modules on the ground or on rooftops will always be significantly lower than in space.  An estimate for the price of sending cost-effective modules to space is at least $285/W. The deployment costs for weight-optimized modules can be much smaller, $17/W, but these modules are much more expensive. In either case the deployment costs alone are a magnitude higher than the current total cost of solar on earth (~$3/W). 

Sunlight is a very diffuse source of energy. To capture a useful amount of it, a large area is needed. To collect sunlight in a cost effective manner, it must be deployed incredibly cheaply, no matter the technology.