I did justify my statement, but I will say it again. Solar project development is an exercise in value capture. As long as solar is cheap enough to compete in energy markets (which is currently the case), when some development costs go down, someone else in the value chain will try and find a way to increase their slice of the pie to try and compensate.

A good analogy is landlords. Why do they raise rents instead of decrease rents? Because they want to profit, and because their costs increase over time due to inflation, and because the market will let them.

Here is another fun one. What happens if/when interests rates go up? We are at record low rates, and most solar projects are debt financed? How will higher rates impact project costs? The obvious answer there is that costs will go up.

> In the US, for example, land can be < 1% of the cost of a utility-scale PV installation.

As I mentioned, that is the case now, but it will likely not be in the future. The number of sites close to existing transmission lines, with good geographical features requiring minimal grading, low flood risk, low wildfire risk, low hurricane risk, etc... are going to diminish quickly as saturation increases. And when it comes to land, costs can go from reasonable to painful real quickly.

I am certainly rooting for costs to go down, as I think that is better for humanity. But I am not betting on it. Why do you think they are going to go down? I don't think you have made a good case for lower costs other than that is what has happened in the past.