by M. Shellenberger, President, Env. Progr., May 16, 2018 in WUWT
Over the last year, the media have published story after story after story about the declining price of solar panels and wind turbines.
People who read these stories are understandably left with the impression that the more solar and wind energy we produce, the lower electricity prices will become.
And yet that’s not what’s happening. In fact, it’s the opposite.
Between 2009 and 2017, the price of solar panels per watt declined by 75 percent while the price of wind turbines per watt declined by 50 percent.
And yet — during the same period — the price of electricity in places that deployed significant quantities of renewables increased dramatically.
Electricity prices increased by:
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51 percent in Germany during its expansion of solar and wind energy from 2006 to 2016;
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24 percent in California during its solar energy build-out from 2011 to 2017;
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over 100 percent in Denmark since 1995 when it began deploying renewables (mostly wind) in earnest.