Cost and prices

The president last night announced he is hoping to arrange a meeting with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to bring an end to the long-running trade stand-off between the two nations, provided further progress can be made in negotiations.

There are indications that the Trump Administration may be reaching a deal with Chinese authorities, but the trade war goes on.

The power giant says that coal, gas and nukes will not be able to compete with clean energy, and that renewable energy deployment is “just getting started”.

EIA’s long-term projections remain stubbornly immune to reality. And the biggest problem is the potential collapse of civilization if we extract and burn anywhere near as much coal, gas and oil as the agency forecasts.

In this #Solar100 interview, Richard Matsui, Founder and CEO of kWh Analytics, speaks with Jenny Chase, veteran solar analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

While a national lab report on floating PV did not estimate its economic potential, the report suggests the most promising markets could be reservoirs in areas with high land costs for ground-mounted solar, and reservoirs with grid-connected hydropower or high evaporation rates.

In this op-ed for pv magazine, KiloNewton Founder and CEO John Williamson looks at both the importance of reducing soft costs and the likely paths to get there.

Unnecessary grid investments raise costs for all customers, displace solar and distributed solutions, and could be unfairly charged to solar customers. Vote Solar’s director of grid integration Ed Smeloff shares his insights in this pv magazine interview.

NovaSolix hopes to use carbon nanotubes to capture a broader portion of the sun’s electromagnetic spectrum, a process they hope will yield a 90% efficient solar cell at a tenth of the cost of modern solar modules.

A recent report puts numbers to the power of wind and solar to reduce wholesale prices in ERCOT. And there is a lot more coming.