Price Per Watt Solar Vs Coal

Until the past decade no alternative energy resource came close to rivaling that price.

Price per watt solar vs coal.

However if you compare the kilowatt hour price a new solar array will generally beat a new coal fired power station. At a glance this seems like a disadvantage since you need over four watts of solar generation to displace one watt of coal power. Incredibly over an eight year span from 2006 to 2014 worldwide average solar panel module prices have dropped over 75 from 3 25 per watt to about 72 per watt. Per the nrel the cost of utility solar was 1 06 per watt in 2018 from the table near the top of this page.

However after construction is completed solar costs just 8 per megawatt hour for operations and maintenance and of course solar has no fuel costs. At an installed price of 1 25 per watt per the above analysis the cost of pv solar is always cheaper than coal. Prices per megawatt hour from electricity for coal fired power plants range from a low of 60 to a high of 143 according to lazard a financial advisory firm that publishes annual estimates of. To get 876 000 mwh per year you would need a solar array with an output of 438 mw.

The most recent projections and estimates for different types of power plants are in levelized cost and levelized avoided cost of new generation resources in the annual energy outlook 2020 which includes estimated costs in dollars per megawatthour mwh based on a 30 year cost recovery period for various types of power plants that start. A study led by the former head of the harvard medical school found that coal cost the us 500 billion per year in extra health and environmental costs approximately 9 kwh 90 mwh to 27. Selected historical mean unsubsidized lcoe values 2009 2019. So in 2018 utility solar was cheaper than coal and advanced nuclear.

The best way to compare solar energy and fossil fuels without subsidies is to examine global energy prices. Over the last decade wind energy prices have fallen 70 and solar photovoltaics have fallen 89 on average according to. Photovoltaic prices have fallen from 76 67 per watt in 1977 to nearly 0 102 per watt in october 2019 for multi crystalline silicon solar cells and module price to 0 21 per watt. Global coal prices have historically averaged 0 06 cents per kilowatt hour kwh.

Coal while certainly cheaper than other fuel sources like fuel cells or biomass costs 21 mwh for fuel and 12 for operations and maintenance totaling 33 per mwh 4x the price of solar.