South Australia is a good example. In 2023–24, wind supplied 45.2% of South Australia’s electricity generation, rooftop solar supplied 18.3%, and large-scale solar another 10.7%. In other words, roughly 74% of the state’s electricity generation came from wind and solar. [1]

And this isn’t a comparison that ignores inflation. AEMO publishes its historical wholesale electricity prices in real June 2024 dollars. South Australia’s average wholesale price in 2023–24 was A$79.53/MWh, compared with roughly A$95/MWh in 2012–13. It was also 40% lower than the previous year’s A$131.90/MWh. [1]

AEMO also specifically identifies increased rooftop and grid-scale solar output as one of the factors contributing to lower wholesale prices. [1]

So there’s a fairly straightforward example: South Australia reached roughly 74% wind and solar generation while its inflation-adjusted wholesale electricity price was lower than it had been around a decade earlier.

That obviously doesn’t mean renewables were the only factor affecting prices - electricity markets are influenced by fuel prices, interconnectors, demand, storage and plenty of other things. But it does disprove the claim that high penetration of wind and solar necessarily results in higher inflation-adjusted electricity prices.

[1] https://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/files/electricity/nem/planni...

I'm sure this wont be enough or acceptable though will it. It never is.

California has the lowest wholesale electricity rate in the country. It's retail electricity rate is the second-highest but that's a problem independent of electricity source.

Solar and wind account for a significant portion of electric generation in Texas.

We could collectively provide a long list of examples across several US states, Europe, and Australia. Is that going to change the minds of people who don't believe it? It will not, the discussion is irrelevant and wasted energy (mental models are rigid, people are irrational and emotion driven broadly speaking), all that matters is the economics.

Lazard Levelized Cost of Energy+ 2026 - https://www.lazard.com/media/kcfconhf/lazards-lcoeplus_vf.pd... [pdf]

> Renewables Remain Lowest Cost New-Build Generation; All Generation Faces Increasing Cost Pressure: Despite rising and inflationary cost pressures across all generation technologies, renewables remain the most cost-competitive form of new-build generation on an unsubsidized basis and will account for the majority of near-term capacity additions in the U.S. Continuous upward revisions to demand projections have driven a sharp increase in announced new-build gas generation despite a 15-year high LCOE, which is expected to continue to rise, and historically long development and equipment delivery timelines.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/installed-solar-pv-capaci...

The World Crossed a Major Solar Milestone [3TW] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49151977 - August 2026

> The world has reached the 3-terawatt threshold of solar power, with the first terawatt taking 10 years to deploy and the next two terawatts taking less than five years.

> Forecasters expect the world to deploy more than 9 terawatts of solar by 2036, with poor countries' share of solar deployment expected to start growing again from this year onward.

> The main constraint for developing countries to adopt solar power is the lack of accessible financing, and the growth of solar power is also limited by the need for energy storage, such as lithium-ion batteries, to absorb excess power.

The global clean tech supply chain will still be around when the US comes around.

Ember Energy: China Cleantech Exports Data Explorer - https://ember-energy.org/data/china-cleantech-exports-data-e... (Updated monthly)