Solar Power Is Now Just As Cheap As Conventional Electricity In Italy And Germany

[jpak]

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/03/24/3418145/solar-grid-parity-italy-germany/

Once all its costs are accounted for, the price of commercial solar power has pulled even with retail electricity rates in Italy and Germany, according to a new report.

The analysis is the third installment in a regular report by the consulting firm Eclareon, done on behalf of an international group of sustainable energy interests. This installment was also the first to look at solar power in the commercial sector rather than the residential sector. It looked at a standard 30 kilowatt solar photovoltaic system for your average commercial building, and the built a methodology to assess its “leveled cost of energy” (LCOE) in seven different countries: Brazil, Chile, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico and Spain.

The LCOE of any source of power — solar, natural gas, coal, wind, etc — accounts for everything that goes into determining that electricity’s cost: installation, maintenance, investment, the electricity itself, depreciation, and so forth. The goal is to give a more complete picture of each power source’s economic position vis-a-vis its rivals.

According to Eclareon’s analysis, solar’s LCOE in Italy and Germany is now at “grid parity,” meaning it’s even with retail electricity prices in general in those countries. Spain’s already gotten there as well, and Mexico and France are coming up.

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[Deep13]

1. Which is the real reason big hydrocarbon opposes it. nt

[Enthusiast]

4. Exactamundo.

They come up with all sorts of silly excuses that never pass muster.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

2. Good, they can continue to ramp up solar, and stop buying

Putin's natural gas. The more Europe switches to renewables, the less influence and power Russia has on the rest of the continent.

[Fred Sanders]

3. A massive shipment of solar panels from America to the Russian fossil fuel dependent

Russian ex-satellite states instead of more natural gas and oil would make too much sense to ever happen.

[gtar100]

5. Russia isn't nearly the enemy of humanity as the oil and gas industry.

Russia is a nationalistic, political entity. Oil and gas companies are making a filthy mess of this Earth and both their products and waste are toxic to life. As much as we might hope for the freedom of our new found love, Crimea, the real win here is in industry, not national political dramas.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

6. Heh.

Personally, I've got no particular dog in the Crimea fight. It sounds like one Russian leader simply 'gave' the area to the Ukraine, and another decided it was stupid to have done so, since most of the people living there still feel like they're Russians. Unless Putin starts getting grabby for more than just Crimea or starts trying to wipe out the Tatars, I think economic sanctions should pretty much be the only response from the West.

But Russia is about as tied up with oil and gas as Saudia Arabia. Undercutting fossil fuel prices with renewables is the only way the fossil fuel industry's stranglehold on humanity is going to be broken short of a massive ecological crash. So undercutting gas and oil sales will take the Russian economy down along with the fossil industry.

[quadrature]

7. so how much?...this story is not believable ...

without prices.