Solar Is Cheaper Than Coal, Nukes

Hopefully, there’s not much surprise in a recent European Commission report (PDF) explaining that the real “direct total cost” of 20th-century energies like coal and nuclear is actually higher than 21st-century solar. The facts are as bright as day.

But the numbers don’t lie, which means the truth is that the EU’s energy competition is clearly tilted toward photovoltaics. Solar world leader Germany has been installing panels like an infrastructure that wants to be taken seriously, and as a result German distributed solar has chopped the value of some of its utilities value in half. So the overall political and economic lesson to be learned from the European Commission’s report is that any utility that wants to have a future should to divest from last century’s globally warmed power plays and turn up the sunshine. The data, and its dollars, more or less demands it.

“With its increasing cost-effectiveness, solar is set to overtake conventional technologies in the short term,” explained European Photovoltaic Industry Association policy director Frauke Thies in a press release. “Despite decades of heavy subsidies, mature coal and nuclear energy technologies still rely on similar levels of public support as innovative solar energy is getting today. However, support to solar electricity is already coming down, in line with the rapid technology cost reduction, as opposed to coal and nuclear energy which remain locked into subsidies as they have been for the last 40 years.”

Of course, it’s just a matter of time before the subsidy crutches are kicked out from oil, natural gas and nuclear, sending them further crashing. Universities, companies and consumers are fleeing them with every new report on global warming’s exponential emissions and disasters. Companies like SolarCity are rolling out solar bonds directly to the people, instead of just powerful financial institutions like Goldman Sachs, who in turn are fielding concerns from their investors about the cratering oil sector.

Everything points toward solar as the prime mover for the energy markets going forward, from the EU outward. Buy in.

This article appeared at Solar Energy