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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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Q: What do you say to a New Yorker with a job?
A: Big Mac, fries and a Coke, please!
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Monday May 25 2015, @02:33AM
We see the latest proposed PPA price for Xcel’s SPS subsidiary by NextEra (NEE) as in NM as setting a new record low for utility-scale solar. [..] The 25-year contracts for the New Mexico projects have levelized costs of $41.55/MWh and $42.08/MWh. Levelized costs which are a) prices not costs, b) factoring in a substantial federal subsidy, and c) bids placed by a party that has an interest in understating what costs they'll encounter (keep in mind that there just isn't many buyers of power purchasing agreements (PPA) out there and plenty of sellers). There's more conflating of PPA bid prices with actual costs being done in the article.
Still it's nice to see that solar power might be competitive with fossil fuels in a few years.