When panels are cheap what about vertical mounting? Less susceptible to hail and snow. And maybe placed north-south, to maximize production in morning and evening when it's needed most.
When cost drops low enough, any surface with any exposure to sunlight is in scope for installing solar on if it can yield more energy than the cost of installing solar on it. It stops being about what is the most efficient and starts being about if the surface is good enough to provide a decent return on investment. Maximizing that ROI is complex but it boils down to getting more value out of the installation than goes in.
Solar doesn't even have to be in panel form. Some office buildings now have windows that double for solar generation. A thin transparent coating does the job. There are roof tiles that double as solar panels. Aptera makes electric cars with integrated solar panels. These are curved glass panels that are manufactured to fit the profile of the roof and hood. It's also possible to print organic solar cells directly on plastic rolls. No glass involved. Or panels. Those are less efficient but you can integrate them on all sorts of surfaces. A lot of that stuff is still emerging technology. But especially organic solar printed on plastic rolls could end up being very cheap to produce. And very light.
I don’t see the logic? As panel prices drop, installation costs start dominating overall cost of energy produced and so economic pressures will be on simpler and simpler PV installations. Laying a panel almost flat on the ground amongst thousands of others will be a cheaper process - both initially and in terms of ongoing maintenance - than anything that involves sending workers up ladders or cherrypickers attaching and wiring a panel onto the side of a building.
So grid scale will start to dominate over domestic or “novelty” (e.g. floating panels on reservoirs) and simpler and simpler approaches to installation (like removing tracking) will become attractive.
These effects are already apparent. Basically the opposite of what you’re predicting?
You use the surface area you have. Most people simply don't have a lot of ground to put solar on but they might have a roof. Also, you don't just need solar panels but also the wires to where the power is needed. On the roof of the building where you are using the power is just about as close as you can get with that.
Otherwise it's a simple economic equation. If installing solar saves enough money such that you end up with a decent return on investment then making that investment is more optimal than not making that investment.
That's why most of Australia is running on rooftop solar when the sun is shining. The US is a bit behind on that mostly because the US has a lot of rules stacked in favor of grid providers. Australia used to have that and eventually the grid providers lost that battle.
Yes ! Triple price of PV panels to buy "ceramic glass print" PV panel with eye pleasing pattern / stealthy photo on it and you can have facade or fence made from PV panels, there is drop in generated power from 10-50 % depended on pattern, color used.
Price per panel not price per install ! ! ! And subtract need to buy materials used for that purpose before.
For a lot of applications, panels are so goddamn cheap now and breakeven happens so fast that "Just buy twice as many panels" is the best solution to any problem that doesn't involve land area. Winter production in a snowy/leafy climate at a latitude tilt, though, is the exception to the rule; Production is so impaired without regular maintenance that twice as many panels is not very helpful. But set those panels vertical, at a range of orientations, and snow/leaves stop being an issue, you get sizable exposure with the sun low on the horizon, the maintenance requirement goes away, and you get an appreciable amount of power earlier in the morning and later in the afternoon, you just don't get quite as much at noon.
But even under your interpretation, you aren't always right. If you're far-ish north of the equator you want south facing panels (and the reverse) and if the cells are cheap enough it makes sense for those panels to be bifacial, with one side permanently facing away from the sun, to get a bit of extra energy from ambient light. Especially in winter when there is less sun (so energy is at a premium), and highly reflective snow resulting in a lot of ambient light.
(Only about 12% of all humans live in the southern hemisphere)