Today, fossil-fuel power typically costs between $0.05 to $0.17 per kWh. By comparison, consider the global-weighted average cost of electricity generated by various forms of renewables in 2017, as calculated by Irena: hydropower ($0.05 per kWh), onshore wind ($0.06 per kWh), bioenergy and geothermal ($0.07 per kWh), and solar photovoltaics ($0.10 per kWh).
Offshore wind and solar thermal power aren’t yet competitive with fossil fuels, but that should change by 2020, Irena predicts, with the cost of solar thermal falling to $0.06 per kWh and offshore wind to $0.10 per kWh. The drivers will be technology development, competitive bidding systems, and large base of experienced project developers across the world. [...]
Varun Sivaram, an expert in solar power at the Council on Foreign Relations, has shown that intermittent power sources suffer from value deflation as they become more important in the energy mix. In a simulation of California’s power market, he found that “when a grid relies on solar power for 15% of its total energy needs, the value of solar falls by more than half,” Sivaram writes in his upcoming book Taming the Sun. “At 30% solar power, solar’s value declines by more than two-thirds.”
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