What percentage of the total cost of photovoltaic power plants in the United States is "soft cost"?

The first thing we have to explain is what is the "soft cost" of a photovoltaic system. This concept can be explained by the following formula:

Soft cost = total cost-hardware (module, inverter, structural and electrical BOS) cost

Photovoltaic system soft cost = total cost-hardware cost (components, inverters, brackets, electrical)

Specifically, soft costs include the costs of land, labor, taxation, administration, and profit. It can be seen from the figure below that the hardware cost of the US photovoltaic system has dropped significantly in the past 7 years, and the proportion of "soft costs" has gradually increased accordingly.

Taking utility-level (large ground) photovoltaics as an example, soft costs only accounted for 32% of total costs in 2010, while soft costs accounted for 41% of total costs in 2017. In 2017, the soft cost of photovoltaic systems in commercial facilities accounted for 59%, while the soft cost of household photovoltaic systems accounted for 68%.