Further to the election in the United States, a lot of people are fearing that this may be a death blow to global climate change mitigation efforts.
Grid parity
Grid parity for solar PV is already here in 105 countries
I have already noted quite a few times in the past month that grid parity is slowly but surely approaching. What if it were already the case ? To the Applied Materials blog and REneweconomy it is already here in over a hundred countries. Yes, solar photovoltaic installed on rooftops is now cheaper than electricity … Read more
Can France achieve 15 GW of solar PV capacity by 2020 ?
To Cleantechnica : ” A study recently published by the French Environment and Energy Management Agency (ADEME) suggests that France’s Solar PV target for 2020 should be 15 GW instead of its current 5.4 GW. “ ” According to ADEME, solar PV has the potential to reach grid parity in France in the coming few years, and therefore is … Read more
Brazilian wind energy is really cheap
So cheap that it is disrupting the Brazilian energy market as Cleantechnica reported : ” Wind farms have won 55% of contracts awarded by Brazil’s national energy agency (…) and wind power now costs about 4.5 cents/kWh in the country. “
This is really really cheap as generally wholesale prices in Europe are three to five times higher. Cleantechnica has a very nice article on how renewables are becoming cheaper and cheaper as the prices of fossil fuels increase.
Grid parity – ie. renewables as cheap or cheaper than coal or gas – is slowly but surely arriving all around the world as I wrote in the past few weeks here.
Solar reaches grid parity around the world
While fossil fuels keep gathering billions and billions of subsidies around the world, solar PV is reaching grid parity around the world. In the past few weeks I was mentioning how it already happened in the United States.
Now, Climate Progress reports that according to Deutsche Bank, the global solar market would grow by twenty percent in 2013 (with as much as 30 Gigawatts to be installed). But wait, there is more.
Still to Deutsche Bank, solar has already achieved grid parity in India, Italy and under certain conditions, Germany. Even better, this is only the beginning.
Solar PV to become the cheapest option by 2018
Currently, the world is relying massively on coal to generate electricity as it is cheap, awfully cheap – if you don’t take into account the negative externalities as it is polluting our air, our soil and is one of the main factors to climate change.
But what if solar became even cheaper than coal ? What if if became the cheapest solution ? We would then have a renewable, clean and cheap alternative to produce gigawatts of electricity.
Kees van der Leun – A Dutchman who has been dedicating himself to renewables for the past 25 years – wrote on Grist an excellent post on that very topic.