It's Official: Solar Is the Cheapest Electricity in History

Posted by: @athena

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@rick-cook can you show numbers? studies? ect...

The IEA says new utility-scale solar projects now cost an average of around $40 per megawatt hour. That’s roughly half the price of coal and natural gas projects.

https://www.mprnews.org/episode/2022/06/03/solar-is-now-the-cheapest-energy-in-history

According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), two-thirds of all wind, solar, and other renewable energy projects that came online in 2020 were cheaper than the cheapest new fossil fuel power planets. That's double the equivalent share for 2019.

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"The global weighted average cost of newly commissioned solar photovoltaics (PV), onshore and offshore wind power projects in 2021 fell. This was despite rising commodity and renewable equipment prices in 2021 given there is a notable lag before these cost increases appear in project total installed costs; and significant improvements in performance in 2021 raised capacity factors, especially for onshore wind," wrote the authors IRENA's Renewable Power Generation Costs in 2021 report.

Compared to 2019, the cost of onshore wind fell by 13%, offshore wind dropped by 9%, and solar photovoltaics projects saw a 7% reduction in cost. New utility-scale solar PV projects commissioned in 2021 fell by another 13% year-on-year, from USD 0.055/kWh to USD 0.048/kWh.

IRENA calculates that, given current high energy prices, the renewable power added in 2021 will save at least $55 billion from global energy generation costs in 2022.

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These findings are echoed by another report released by the International Energy Agency (IEA), known as World Energy Outlook 2020, which concluded that "solar power is now the cheapest electricity in history".

According to the IEA, PV technology is cheaper than coal and gas in most countries. In fact, the sinking cost of solar has caught even the authors of the report by surprise, which has led them to revise some of their earliest forecasts.

The IEA presented four pathways or scenarios for what the world's energy generation might look like in 2040, all of which forecast a massive rise in renewables. The current most likely scenario, which isn't overly optimistic, has 43% more solar output by 2040 than the IEA had forecasted earlier in 2018.

These developments are naturally good news, but they're still not on track to stave off humanity's greatest existential threat: climate change.

Despite the declines in coal and other fossil fuels, the IEA and other research institutions are cautious about declaring we've reached peak global oil use. Furthermore, demand for gas is expected to rise by 30% by 2040, although the war in Ukraine has surely changed this dynamic, at least in Europe.

We're just not out of the woods yet, as far as our reliance on fossil fuels is concerned and a lot more ambitious action is required of us. Keeping global warming below 1.5°C by reaching global net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050 would involve, among other things, individual behavioral change, such as working from home at least three days a week and less meat consumption.

“Renewables are by far the cheapest form of power today,” said IRENA director-general Francesco La Camera. “Renewable power frees economies from volatile fossil fuel prices and imports, curbs energy costs and enhances market resilience – even more so if today’s energy crunch continues,” he added.

As world leaders gear up for COP27 in Egypt in November, governments would be well advised to take advantage of increasingly affordable renewable energy and the vulnerabilities exposed by the energy crisis to accelerate their commitments and turn their climate pledges into concrete action. 

https://www.zmescience.com/science/solar-is-now-the-cheapest-energy-in-history/

I saw the article you quoted with all the graphs.

link to full article here: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast? - Our World in Data

A couple of points that we can see grossly:

1) The article says that coal or natural gas plants cost higher due to the cost of the resources. Clearly the cost of the resources can be manipulated by governmental regulations. The US has made significant restrictions and increased regulations of the mining and processing of fossil fuel hence causing the cost to rise. 

2) at the same time it hiked up regulation of the fossil fuel it also enacted significant deregulation of solar and wind energy.  same goes for nuclear, while a green source, it has not received the attention of solar and wind henceforth cost is higher. 

3) Solar and wind energy is cheap, why? because the supplies are made by China. China now owns 85% of rare earth minerals used in solar power and is provide the majority of solar panels and other things.  So you regulate to death fossile fules- which is abundant in your own country and  promote greeny goods to line chinese pockets. Talk about economic suicide.

4) If solar and wind energy is so cheap how come we don't see more of it? That is because while generating the electricity is cheap, it depends on the amount of sun and wind. So storage is the problem. From what I see lithium battery technology is the main source of storage at the current time. The technology isn't there yet, so that is why we still need fossil fuels. 

So basically the cost savings is achieved by heavy regulations. So the govt can tax and regulate  fossil fuel to death and do various things so prop up and help the greenies until they are "cheap" enough. 

@athena

3) Solar and wind energy is cheap, why? because the supplies are made by China. China now owns 85% of rare earth minerals used in solar power and is provide the majority of solar panels and other things.  So you regulate to death fossile fules- which is abundant in your own country and  promote greeny goods to line chinese pockets. Talk about economic suicide.

rare earth materials technically aren't really rare. Rare earth is imported from China because China has less striction on pollution. technically, Vietnam and Brazil alone can easily replace Chinese dominance in the rare earth market.

@rick-cook Vietnam can’t even produce quality screws, how can they mine rare earth metals?  They are abundant  but costly to mine and process. However the west don’t lack technology or money so why did they let the Chinese take over this market?