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Solar Power Cost: Don't Forget Intermittency (energy economics 101)

By David Bergeron -- October 12, 2011

[Ed. note: David Bergeron is president of SunDanzer Development, Inc., a solar energy company located in Tucson. His earlier posts at MasterResource are Free-Market Solar: The Real Opportunity and Economic/Environmental Assessment of Grid-Tiered Photovoltaics: Arizona Lessons for the U.S.]

“The economic case for grid-tied PV is indeed quite hopeless, and the sooner we stop the misguided subsidies the sooner we can focus on actually addressing our legitimate energy and environmental concerns.”

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) recently published an excellent report on the projected cost of electricity generated by different technologies: coal, natural gas, nuclear, and various others, including renewables.

Levelized Cost of Energy

Their Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) calculation combines upfront cost with recurring cost to estimate the average cost of power produced by these technologies. Here is the EIA cost datafor coal, natural gas, and solar PV.…