Price Per Watt Solar Vs Coal

So in 2018 utility solar was cheaper than coal and advanced nuclear.

Price per watt solar vs coal.

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. 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. The best way to compare solar energy and fossil fuels without subsidies is to examine global energy prices. However after construction is completed solar costs just 8 per megawatt hour for operations and maintenance and of course solar has no fuel costs.

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. 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. However if you compare the kilowatt hour price a new solar array will generally beat a new coal fired power station. A solar energy system can absolutely help you insulate yourself against these fluctuations and increases.

To get 876 000 mwh per year you would need a solar array with an output of 438 mw. Of course it s all about location. 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. Until the past decade no alternative energy resource came close to rivaling that price.

89 90 this is seen as evidence supporting swanson s law which states that solar cell prices fall 20 for every doubling of cumulative shipments. Selected historical mean unsubsidized lcoe values 2009 2019. Per the nrel the cost of utility solar was 1 06 per watt in 2018 from the table near the top of this page. At a glance this seems like a disadvantage since you need over four watts of solar generation to displace one watt of coal power.

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.