Roadmap: Solar Energy Cheap as Coal All Over US

Here’s the latest on America’s solar energy potential from a well-reasoned new report by Clean Edge and Co-op America:

Solar could become ubiquitous as with earlier semiconductor-based revolutions.

Right now, solar makes up just one-tenth of one percent of the US total energy supply. But that could jump to ten percent by 2025 with a total investment of about $30 billion a year and a sharp turn in thinking from the nation’s utilities, according to the new roadmap to a solar future, Utility Solar Assessment (USA) Study (pdf).

It’s practical counsel when you consider that the utility industry spent $70 billion last year on traditional power plants and distribution. From the study: 

The [10% solar] investment is definitely within the range of what utilities and other energy consumers would have to pay for more traditional and polluting sources such as coal- and natural-gas-fired plants, and we believe, considerably less than the price tag for a similar amount of nuclear power or coal power (in a carbon-regulated environment).

According to Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA), conventional US power plant costs have risen more than 130 percent between 2000 and the end of 2007, and were up 27 percent between October 2006 and October 2007.

The price of coal will surge even higher after national carbon regulation becomes law. And the capital costs of building new nuclear plants is projected to keep exploding, too.

Meanwhile, solar technologies continue their inexorable price decline.

Solar can already compete with conventional energy sources in regions with high electricity rates and favorable incentives. The Clean Edge and Co-op report concludes that by 2015, solar will be cost-competitive in many regions in the US, including Chicago, Boston and New York. By 2025, it will hit cost parity just about everywhere (see the detailed chart on page 6 for more).

To reach ten percent, investments will have to be $400 billion to $500 billion to install the required solar photovoltaics (PV), and an additional $50 billion to $60 billion to install concentrated solar power (CSP). That adds up to an average investment of $26 billion to $33 billion per year.

Have a look at p.12 for what the US government must do to create a favorable regulatory environment for utilities. Here’s three of the essentials, none of which will surprise you:

1. Create a federal cap-and-trade system.
2. Institute a national Renewable Portfolio Standard with a solar carve-out.
3. Pass a long-term extension of investment and production tax credits for solar and other renewables --and extend them to utilities.

With the Bush Administration finally groaning to a halt, we may actually see these come to fruition.

Look: in 2007, the cumulative installed capacity of PV plus CSP in the US was just 1,284 megawatts. That’s equivalent to about 1.5 conventional power plants.

Still, the scenario of ten percent solar by 2025 is a cautious and modest aspiration -- maybe even the bare minimum of what's possible.

So, as you have a careful read of the excellent, data-packed Clean Edge and Co-op America report, dare to dream bigger dreams. Think Scientific American's Solar Grand Plan, which found that solar could supply 69 percent of the US's total electricity by 2050 for just $10 billion a year. 

And then think Iraq, and all the dollars that have been shoveled there. The direct costs to the US are now at around $523 billion. That's equivalent to all the seed money needed to grow the solar energy solution.

At this point, it's a moot point to ask what if. But it’s never too late to be informed about what's actually possible -- and to elect future leaders that will push investments and policies that will build America's job-building, clean energy economy, finally.

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