Utility Scale Solar Get's Inexpensive

The latest figures are in, and they show the bond between utilities and solar is growing and causing the U.S. power system's transition to higher level renewables.

"Utilities of all kinds and in many places are accelerating from zero to 100 on solar in response to record-low prices," Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA) analysis manager and paper lead author Daisy Chung explained Utility Dive.

Opposed to the word from Washington, D.C., utility-scale renewables are not "badly behaved coal plants" that warn grid reliability and national security, Seb Henbest, lead writer of the Bloomberg New Energy Finance New Energy Outlook, inscribed July 25. "By 2050, we're painting a picture of an electricity system utterly reshaped around cheap wind, solar and batteries."

Renewable energy sources like wind and solar were 8.2% of U.S. production in 2017, with wind at 6.3% and solar at 1.9%, and U.S. grids are integrating record levels of renewables without interruption. Wind was 54% of Texas production on October 27, 2017, and wind and solar together provided 64.6% of California's energy on May 26, 2018.

Investors respond "phenomenally abundant" renewables could support a trillion-dollar U.S. market by 2030 and solar will play a vital part, according to an April American Council on Renewable Energy survey.

Utilities are seeing the possibility and responding, according to the 2018 Utility Solar Market Snapshot cleared in July by the SEPA.

Utilities have long played a fundamental role in U.S. wind growth, which has tripled since 2007 to stand almost 89 GW of cumulative installed capacity. In the same term, utilities added 42 GW of solar to the grid, including 7.4 GW in 2017, SEPA reports.

Utility And Solar

"Utilities of all kinds and in many places are accelerating from zero to 100 on solar in response to record low prices."

Solar prices have been slower to reach competitive levels than wind prices, but the SEPA report shows utilities responding to the new low prices quickly, Chung announced.

Out of the 7.4 GW total, investor-owned utilities added 5,825 MW of new solar capacity in 2017 and "remain the driving force of new solar installations across the country," SEPA states. In the Southeast, where solar growth has historically been hindered, "several large utilities have propelled rapid solar deployment."

Southern Company Solar

Southern Company and its four subsidiaries are "bullish on solar," VP for Energy Policy Bruce Edelston said Utility Dive. They added a cumulative 375 MW for four Southeastern states in 2017 and had a pipeline that will likely deliver around 200 MW annually for the foreseeable future, he stated.

"The price has come down substantially in the past couple of years and is now competitive with coal and gas," he stated. "We would not be buying so much now if it was not the cheapest option."

One of the country's most influential advocates for distributed solar agreed. "Recent bids in utility solicitations show how cost-effective utility-scale solar is," John Farrell, administrator of the Energy Democracy Initiative at the Institute for Local Self Reliance (ILSR), announced to Utility Dive.

Want to save and be guided by experts who do the research and know the answers? Go to HahaSmart.com and try our price checker tool. How much solar power you need and how much you can save on your energy bills each month.