Cost to install solar panels in the US has dropped 40% over the last year

On the same theme as an earlier entry today on China's investment in green energy, there is also a diary on Daily Kos today about the falling cost to install solar panels that goes into some detail.

We're on the verge of a pretty big change right now, and if everything goes as planned then just five years from now we'll be looking at quite a different world. Grid parity with green energy is one, as is the advent of electric cars. The first extrasolar Earth-like planet will be discovered either this year or the next, and (knock on wood) the US will be long out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and hopefully won't be tied down in any other parts of the world. Virgin Galactic will have been providing suborbital flights for a few years then, Bigelow Aerospace will have had its BA 330 craft in orbit for a few years as well, SpaceX will be well established, hopefully the Google Lunar X Prize will have been won, and we'll be on the verge of finally seeing what Ceres looks like from close up. So yes, I'm extremely optimistic about the near future, much more so than five years ago in 2004.