Cost and prices

“90% by 2035 is the sweet spot” for a pathway that uses existing technology, allows “judicious use” of existing generation assets, and “achieves near-complete decarbonization in a realistic timeframe,” said study co-author Nikit Abhyankar of UC Berkeley. The resulting lower wholesale cost of electricity by 2035 “was a surprise for us.”

The levelized cost of energy generated by large scale solar plants is around $0.068/kWh, compared to $0.378 ten years ago and the price fell 13.1% between 2018 and last year alone, according to figures released by the International Renewable Energy Agency.

Also in the brief: Terra Pave Albedo is an America Made Solar Prize competition finalist, a list of environment and climate organizations that have made statements on racism. Plus — “Coal consumption will be crushed in 2020.”

Electricity consumers would pay at least $1.1 billion more per year in the 13-state PJM grid region, says a new report, while 8.5 GW of capacity sales from new solar developments would be excluded from the capacity market, and corporate solar purchase agreements could cost 50% more — if courts uphold a federal regulation known as “MOPR.”

Now that the two-year tax holiday enjoyed by solar and wind projects operating on federally-owned lands is over, project owners and developers are facing back rent with more expensive leasing costs looming in 2021. With federal land being critical to a renewable future, what can be done?

Also in the brief: Consumers Energy is providing 100,000 Google Nest thermostats to Michigan households, Tesla has quietly made Model 3 ready for bidirectional charging, SolSmart adds new partners.

New research models that the price of solar will continue to drop faster than previous predictions. This would mean that building new solar would be routinely cheaper than operating already-built fossil fuel plants, even in today’s world of ultra-cheap natural gas.

Adding enough distributed storage to reduce peak demand by 20% could defer up to one-fifth of the transmission and distribution expenditures in Texas for about 10 years, a study found. Other states may find the study’s analytical insights to be useful.

A new report from the California PUC documents the uneven workings of the state’s 100% renewable portfolio standard — and the need for better data on cost savings.

The pre-life of the Spotsylvania solar energy project has been riddled with financial and societal difficulties. As much as these issues have made a quagmire of development, it also provides a case study on the logistics of getting such a large project built.