"Someday" is Now for Solar and Wind Power, says Lazard
Source: IEEE Spectrum
Large wind and solar power farms have the economics to go toe-to-toe with the cheapest fossil fuel-based power supplies in the United States according to the venerable financial advisory firm Lazard Ltd. Thanks to falling costs and rising efficiency, reports Lazard in an analysis released this week, utility-scale installations of solar panels and wind turbines now produce power at a cost that's competitive with natural gas and coal-fired generating stationseven without subsidies.
The results appear in the eighth annual update of Lazard's Levelized Cost of Energy Analysis (pdf), which compares the combined cost of financing, building, and operating power generating plants using a variety of energy technologies. Lazard projects that new utility-scale solar plants will deliver energy at US $72-86 per megawatt-hour, and wind turbines beat that with a cost of $37-81/MWh.
Those renewable energy options compare well against the cost of the most cost-effective natural gas-fired technologycombined cycle plantswhich delivers at a projected $61-127/MWh (depending on whether the plant captures its carbon dioxide emissions). The renewables look even better against coal in Lazard's analysis, which prices new coal-fired generation at $66-171/MWh.
The London-based Financial Times says the message is that renewables are starting to "outshine" gas. The FT quotes George Bilicic, Lazard global head of power, energy & infrastructure, accepting that renewable energy has finally arrived: We used to say some day solar and wind power would be competitive with conventional generation. Well, now it is some day.
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Read more: http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/renewables/someday-is-now-for-solar-wind-power-says-lazard
NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)A sixth grader, he was.
think
(11,641 posts)jen63
(813 posts)Mnpaul
(3,655 posts)One of Lazard's cronies, Mike McFadden, is running against Al Franken. McFadden is a fan of the pipeline
Control-Z
(15,682 posts)and the greedy politicians who get paid off by them, spin this news? Look for it. I expect some lower-than-we-ever-thought-they-could-go lows (ie: lies).
kelliekat44
(7,759 posts)So you know the fossil fuel industry won't allow that to happen.
someone else
(55 posts)and I'm putting solar on my roof. It will outlive me. I already have solar water heater that works great.
Woodwizard
(842 posts)We put a 9 kw system on the house and shop it has put more on the grid than we have used.
My shop has hot water panels heating the slab in winter just about eliminates heating costs. But still in this day and age most people are completely ignorant of the capability of solar.
I do see it showing up on more houses but not enough, my system installed cost 1.40 a watt it will pay for itself in 7-8 years