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Make financial sense to whom? If solar is cheaper than natural gas, how does a utility profit from charging less? They are highly regulated, and are usually all
by epistasis 4y ago
Make financial sense to whom? If solar is cheaper than natural gas, how does a utility profit from charging less? They are highly regulated, and are usually allowed to take a percentage as profit. So it's in their interest to take the more expensive option, depending on regulations
Saying that solar isn't cheap is just ignoring the past five years of cost data.
- tppiotrowski 4y agoNatural gas runs on cloudy days and at night. Taking a bus is cheaper than flying, but if you want to get somewhere fast you need to fly. Price is just one metric.
- epistasis 4y agoIn the US, the rare instances of more open markets for electricity generation markets, like ERCOT, and seeing wind/solar/storage dominate over natural gas in new deployments. This wouldn't happen unless they actually were cheaper. However, regulated monopolies in other parts of the country have no incentive to innovate or use newer technology. Thus they make their five year plans (usually called IRPs) with opaque financial models with out-of-date costs, leading to bad decision making.