Fossil Fuel Interests Ramp Up Their “Solar Makes Electricity More Expensive” Falsehood

January 2, 20252 days ago Steve Hanley 0 Comments

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In the run-up to Trump 2.0, the fossil fuel industry is trotting out its biggest guns to attack renewable energy and electric cars, which should come as no surprise. They paid to get him elected and now they want to make sure they get the maximum return on their investment. Every morning, I start my day by perusing the emails that came in overnight. This morning there were two in my “solar power” news alert that caught my eye. One was a headline from the Wall Street Journal that screamed, “Green Electricity Costs a Bundle. The data make clear — The notion that solar and wind power save money is an environmentalist lie.” The second was from a Koch Industries mouthpiece in Canada called the Fraser Institute that proclaimed, “Solar and wind power make electricity more expensive — that’s a fact.”

Solar Bashing

The Wall Street Journal story began this way: “As nations use more and more supposedly cheap solar and wind power, a strange thing happens: Our power bills get more expensive. This exposes the environmentalist lie that renewables have already outmatched fossil fuels and that the ‘green transition’ is irreversible even under a second Trump administration. The claim that green energy is cheaper relies on bogus math that measures the cost of electricity only when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. Modern societies need around-the-clock power, requiring backup, often powered by fossil fuels. That means we’re paying for two power systems — renewables and backup. Moreover, as fossil fuels are used less, those power sources need to earn their capital costs back in fewer hours, leading to even more expensive power.”

Is it a coincidence that the Fraser Institute parrots the theme of the WSJ article? That’s a question we will leave our readers to decide for themselves. Here’s what it had to say:

“Wind and solar energy are intermittent, meaning they aren’t consistently available, so we need an alternative power source when there’s no sunlight or wind given the current limited ability to store energy from solar and wind. So we must maintain enough energy capacity in a parallel system, typically powered by natural gas. Constructing and upkeeping a secondary energy source results in higher overall energy costs because two energy systems cost more than one. Therefore, when evaluating the costs of renewables, we must consider the costs of backup energy.

“Often, when proponents claim that wind and solar sources are cheaper than fossil fuels, they ignore these costs. A recent study published in Energy, a peer-reviewed energy and engineering journal, found that — after accounting for backup, energy storage and associated indirect costs — solar power costs skyrocket from US$36 per megawatt hour (MWh) to as high as US$1,548 and wind generation costs increase from US$40 to up to US$504 per MWh.”

Doing My Due Diligence On Solar

I was curious about that study, which was done by Robert Idel when he was a Ph.D candidate at Rice. It just so happens that Rice is in Texas where the electrical grid is operated by ERCOT. Readers may recall that a freakish winter storm paralyzed the Texas grid in 2022 — mostly because the pumps for the pipelines that provided methane to thermal generating stations failed. Afterwards, prices for electricity ballooned to astronomical heights and a close reading of Idel’s “study” shows those are the numbers he used to support his argument. It may be helpful to know that Idel, Ph.D in hand, later put his expertise in grid economics to become the director of auction economics for Tripadvisor. It may also be helpful to know that while Energy may be a peer-reviewed publication, the link Idel posted goes to a study with the words “Preprint — Not Peer Reviewed” on every page. Hmmm.

When faced with such outrageous and downright scary news from the likes of the Wall Street Journal and the Fraser Institute, I was at a loss to find a way to challenge those preposterous claims in a way that is science based and rational. So I reached out to Mark Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and the director of the Atmosphere/Energy Program at Stanford University. Mark is a longtime friend of CleanTechnica who has authored several studies and position papers that chart exactly how virtually every nation on Earth can transition to affordable renewable energy with no risk of blackouts.

He is always ready with a clear, concise response, and today was no different. Within hours, Mark responded not only with an information-packed email but also with a link to a study published December 22, 2024, by the journal Renewable Energy authored by himself and his colleagues that addresses precisely the questions raised by the WSJ and the Fraser Institute. Here’s what he had to say in response to my SOS for information.

Mark Jacobson Sets The Record Straight

“Table 1 of the paper shows that 10 of the 11 U.S. states with higher fractions of their demand powered by renewables are among the 20 states with the lowest U.S. electricity prices. Six of the states are among the 10 states with the lowest prices. For example, from October 1, 2023 until September 30, 2024, South Dakota (ranked #1 in terms of its penetration of WWS* renewables relative to demand) provided 110% of the electricity it consumed from just wind (77.5%), hydro (30.1%), and solar (2.2%) yet had the 9th-lowest electricity price in the U.S. in March, 2024. South Dakota also produced another 16% of its electricity from fossil gas and 11.2% from coal so produced a total of 137% of the electricity it consumed but exported the additional 37%. Similarly, Montana (ranked #2) and Iowa (#3) supplied 86.5% and 79.4% of their demand with WWS but had the 8th and 12th-lowest prices. Only Maine (#7) had high prices (ranked 42nd).”

[*WWS in Mark Jacobson’s world refers to wind, water (as in hydropower), and solar.]

solar power — Figure 8, Jacobson et al. Credit: Renewable Energy journal

“California (#12) also had high prices (ranked #49). However, it is easy to show California’s high prices have nothing to do with increasing renewables. For example, the same paper in Figure 8 shows that the spot (instantaneous) price of electricity in California dropped by over 50% during the period of interest covered by the paper (March 7 to June 30) 2024 versus 2023 despite a big growth in solar, wind, and batteries in 2024 versus 2023. A lower spot price means it is easier to match demand with supply. Spot prices dropped over 50% despite far more WWS on the grid in 2024 indicating renewables reduce the risk of blackout and make it easier to match demand.

“So why are California’s electricity prices so high? They are high for several reasons that have nothing to do with renewables. These include high fossil gas prices (3rd highest in U.S.), utilities passing on to customers the cost of wildfires due to transmission-line sparks, the cost of undergrounding transmission lines to reduce such fires, the costs of the San Bruno and Aliso Canyon fossil gas disasters, the cost of retrofitting gas pipes following San Bruno, the cost of upgrading aging transmission and distribution lines, and the cost of keeping the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant open. In sum, available data indicate that increasing the share of WWS reduces electricity price throughout the US. When high prices occur, they are not due to WWS.”

So, those high electricity costs in California are attributable to causes other than solar power. Here is a summary of the rest of the Mark Jacobson study published in Renewable Energy:

“This paper shows that the main grid in the world’s fifth largest economy was able to provide more than 100% of the electricity that it used from only four clean renewable sources – –solar, wind, hydroelectric, and geothermal — for anywhere from 5 minutes to over 10 hours per day for 98 out of 116 days during late winter, all of spring, and early summer, as well as for 132 days during the entire year of 2024, without its grid failing. The growth of solar, wind, and battery storage, in particular, resulted in fossil gas use dropping 40% during the 116 day period and 25% during the entire year of 2024 relative to 2023. In comparison with 2023, solar, wind, and battery capacities increased significantly, with batteries doubling in capacity. In fact, batteries met a peak of 12% of nighttime demand during the period of interest. The decrease, in just one year of 25% of gas use on the CAISO grid indicates the complete phase-out of gas is approaching. This also debunks the myth that gas must increase when renewables increase on the grid.”

Coincidence Is Not Causality

The error that both the Wall Street Journal and the Fraser Institute make in their articles is an example of the sort of trick apologists for the fossil fuel industry pull all the time. Because the price of electricity in Texas spiked after a winter storm, it must be because of those damned solar and wind farms (in fact, solar came through for ERCOT big time when the thermal generating stations failed). If the cost of electricity in Germany has gone up, it must be because of solar, not because Germany decided to take its nuclear power plans off line with little prior planning.

As the Trump Circus, Part Deux rolls into town, we must be prepared for more of these deceits. It will be “drill, baby, drill” 24/7 for the next 4 years unless the members of Congress and the courts can remember what their constitutional duties are. The only way to fight these sorts of attacks is with accurate information. Thanks to Mark Jacobson, we now have the information we need to counter the misrepresentations and disinformation campaigns the fossil fuel crowd has in store. Knowledge is power. Use it wisely.