alt Hacker News$33 per MWh for solar. What is it for coal or natural gas? Maybe half that?
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It's already cheaper to demolish an existing coal plant that's already paid for and replace it with solar + battery. Solar and battery brand new buildout, plus their maintenance overhead, dominates coal even when you only count coal's maintenance cost.
People have it in their heads that this is some bleeding heart, don't ruin the planet thing, but it's plain economics. Non-renewable energy is simply inferior, and will only become more so.
Why would you think that? Solar and wind are both far cheaper than fossil fuels even ignoring the problems caused by coal and methane.
Solar and storage is the cheapest form of power now. Prices for both will continue to decline.
Battery storage hits $65/MWh – a tipping point for solar - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46251705 - December 2025
$100+ meh for natural gas. Solar and battery is so cheap that arab countries are now building large solar and battery systems to save money instead of burning oil and gas. Where as in the US the other big oil and gas producer wholesale electricity prices for Natural Gas is around $100-150 mwh which is cheaper than coal and the major reason coal got pushed out. Then we have China and India where coal is around $40-50 mwh.
So solar and batteries are now cheaper than all other forms of energy/electricity the only problem is finance for poor countries as you need to spend for all the 15-20 years of electricity in one go where as for coal and gas you will spend the same amount over 10-15 years. For rich countries the problem is mostly protectionism as cheap energy would destroy a lot of wealth of people in power.
Curious, where do you get your news? What gives you the impression that coal or gas would possibly be cheaper than solar?
In the US as of June 2024: Gas peaker plants are: $110-228 And Gas combined cycle: $45-108
PV in the US is also more expensive than globally however: $38-171 for Utility scale with storage, when including subsidies, $60-210 when not.
Coal is so much worse in every cost metric than gas combined cycle it's not worth considering, even leaving the pollution aside.
https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2024-12/34-%20Exh...