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posted by mrpg on Saturday December 17 2016, @03:15PM   Printer-friendly
from the solar-wind dept.

A transformation is happening in global energy markets that's worth noting as 2016 comes to an end: Solar power, for the first time, is becoming the cheapest form of new electricity.

This has happened in isolated projects in the past: an especially competitive auction in the Middle East, for example, resulting in record-cheap solar costs. But now unsubsidized solar is beginning to outcompete coal and natural gas on a larger scale, and notably, new solar projects in emerging markets are costing less to build than wind projects, according to fresh data from Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

The chart below shows the average cost of new wind and solar from 58 emerging-market economies, including China, India, and Brazil. While solar was bound to fall below wind eventually, given its steeper price declines, few predicted it would happen this soon.
...
"Renewables are robustly entering the era of undercutting" fossil fuel prices, BNEF chairman Michael Liebreich said in a note to clients this week.

Will we see a sharp pivot in energy production, or a gradual tailing off of fossil fuels as renewables take hold?


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  • (Score: 2) by Whoever on Saturday December 17 2016, @04:48PM

    by Whoever (4524) on Saturday December 17 2016, @04:48PM (#442460) Journal

    In order to make solar (and other renewables) work, we are going to need to upgrade the national grid. [vox.com]

    You can discount any article that starts with a falsehood:

    The US has no national electricity grid. Instead, it has a patchwork of grids, operated as closed-off regional and local fiefdoms with little trade among them.

    The US doesn't have a national grid, that part is true. But it does have 3 grids: Western, Eastern and Texas.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 17 2016, @05:18PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 17 2016, @05:18PM (#442468)

    One grid is not a patchwork. And surely adding one more grid doesn't make a patchwork from a non-patchwork...

    Somebody get Eubulides!

    • (Score: 2) by Wootery on Sunday December 18 2016, @05:10PM

      by Wootery (2341) on Sunday December 18 2016, @05:10PM (#442714)

      Sure, the continuum fallacy is a thing. So what?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 17 2016, @06:26PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 17 2016, @06:26PM (#442480)

    What falsehood?

    You agreed with the quote. Dumbass.