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posted by
martyb
on Sunday May 24 2015, @08:12PM
from the price-of-sunlight-and-wind-is-pretty-constant dept.
from the price-of-sunlight-and-wind-is-pretty-constant dept.
Over the last 5 years, the price of new wind power in the US has dropped 58% and the price of new solar power has dropped 78%. Utility-scale solar in the West and Southwest is now at times cheaper than new natural gas plants. Even after removing the federal solar Investment Tax Credit of 30%, a recent New Mexico solar deal is priced at 6 cents / kwh. By contrast, new natural gas electricity plants have costs between 6.4 to 9 cents per kwh, according to the EIA.
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Renewables are Disruptive to Coal and Gas
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QOTD:
The forest may be quiet, but that doesn't mean
the snakes have gone away.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by sjames on Monday May 25 2015, @06:41AM
It seems to already be having an effect on some places. In Australia, for example, the power companies tried to put the squeeze on their customers who were depending on net metering. The customers shot back by disconnecting their solar from the grid and using a combination of storage and load shifting . It looks like the power companies there are now in the position of wither returning to the table with a better offer or beginning a death spiral. Several American power companies are starting to make the same bad move and may face the same result.
There will definitely need to be new standards and probably mods to the grid. Soon there will be enough solar installations that a power failure could create unsynchronized mini-grids that must somehow be synced back up, for example. DC distribution would fix that, but will require an awful lot of equipment to be switched out.