Third Phase of Clean Energy Will Be Most Disruptive Yet

As I’ve written often, the most important aspect of clean energy policy has been to drive down the price of clean energy by scaling it, and thus kicking in the learning-by-doing that continually lowers the unsubsidized price of new solar, new wind, and new energy storage. Now, after decades of subsidizing solar and wind, we’re on the verge of a new, radically different point in history – the point at which building new solar or wind power (or new energy storage systems, in some cases), is cheaper than the cost of continuing to operate existing coal- or gas-fueled power plants. If those policies – and the fact that renewables are now competitive for new power even without subsidies in the sunny and wind parts of the world – continue for long enough for renewables to drop another factor of 2 or 3 in price – on top of the factor of 10 or more that they’ve fallen already, then we’ll enter a new domain where renewable growth rates aren’t determined by fickle policy.

Source: rameznaam.com