Editor’s note: Note that this evaluation does not take social, environmental, or public health costs into account, and natural gas comes with high social, environmental, or public health costs. Those costs, for the most part, are not priced into power plant costs in the United States. A supplemental report to … [continued]
The U.S. offshore wind energy pipeline is predicted to exceed 25,000 megawatts (MW) by 2030. But, with only two commercial offshore wind plants currently operating in the United States, developers need accurate modeling to evaluate prospective new projects, weigh realistic costs against financial returns, anticipate the impact of technological and process innovations, and quantify risk factors.
We recently saw the International Energy Agency (IEA) report that solar power offers the cheapest electricity in history. That was a global report. A US-focused report from Lazard recently reported something similar, but even better news.
New research from Berkeley Lab outlines how the useful life and operating expenses of utility-scale photovoltaic plants have leveled.
We are making great progress, with costs of solar, wind, and batteries continuing their decline. But we are not moving fast enough to turn the tide on human-caused climate change. One study I saw recently said we need to be installing wind and solar at triple the current rate to get to 90% renewable just for electricity by 2035.
A bifacial solar panel is a solar panel that can collect energy from the front side and the rear side (a normal monofacial panel only collects energy from one side). Bifacial solar technology was created in the latter 1960s. It was dormant while the broader PV market exploded. It was too costly for the incremental energy production improvements.
Some days if feels like things aren’t made to last. Cell phone replacements, for one — how many does one have to have? Wind turbines, however, show a refined aging that suffers little efficiency loss over time.
The utility-scale solar sector has led the overall U.S. solar market in terms of installed capacity since 2012. In 2018, the utility-scale sector accounted for nearly 60% of all new solar capacity, and is expected to maintain its market-leading position for at least another six years.
A brief decade held considerable cost-efficiency gains in wind and solar. These sustainable technologies are now more cost-effective than any other power generation technologies in general, according to Lazard. Solar and wind technologies simply make more sense.
We need clean energy, and we need it ASAP. There are barriers to getting it done, including permitting, price, land-use issues, energy-water nexus issues, lobbying efforts by the fossil industries and the puppets they install in our government, and more. Capital projects can take years to develop as a result of these obstacles.
