I have to admit to surprise at the speed of developments in storage. My guess is that cost-competitive solutions will be available well before we could (say) plan and build a nuclear reactor.

Solar and storage means “game over” for traditional utilities
By Giles Parkinson on 26 August 2013

Last Friday’s story about the predictions of Stanford University energy expert Tony Seba that solar would displace fossil fuels by 2030 – and how electric vehicles would do the same to liquid fuels – certainly generated a lot of readership, and a big response.

Some questioned whether we should be taking the opinion of just one academic at his word. So we’ve followed up with some quotes from two of the most senior energy chiefs in the US, the world’s biggest electricity market. And the predictions are just as striking.

Jon Wellinghoff, the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which regulates utilities in the US, said in an interview last week that solar will “overtake everything”, and said that once storage is brought in to the equation it is pretty much “game over” for traditional forms of generation.

“Solar is growing so fast it is going to overtake everything,” he told Greentech Media on the sidelines of the National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas.

He noted that in the next 2.5 years, the US will double its entire cumulative capacity of distributed solar built up over the previous four decades, and the installation cost of solar would continue to plunge from its current level of $4-$5 a watt, to $2 a watt and $1 a watt.

“At its present growth rate, solar will overtake wind in about ten years. It is going to be the dominant player. Everybody’s roof is out there,” he said. “Once it is more cost-effective to build solar with storage than to build a combustion turbine or wind for power at night, that is ‘game over.’ At that point, it will be all about consumer-driven markets.”

That is an extraordinary comment by the head of the US energy regulator, and not one you will hear in Australia, even though the level of penetration of rooftop solar is much higher, the installed cost of solar much lower (Australia has fewer “soft” costs and is already at around $A2/watt), and the retail price of solar is much higher.

But Welinghoff’s comments fit in with what the heads of his country’s biggest independent generation and utility companies have said about the potential of solar to change the game. That is just starting to dawn in Australia, where the market operator and utilities admit an increasing impact from solar, and state energy ministers are admitting that they are struggling to cope.

In separate remarks to the conference, Wellinghof said that it was clear that electricity markets were undergoing dramatic and profound change.

“Our markets were made up for a very centralised system, very large plants and plants that were distant from loads. We’re moving to a much more distributed system that also has consumers participating as resources with their load. FERC’s primary role is to ensure that all those resources and can get a fair opportunity to participate and get compensated.

“”We’re not picking winners and losers,” he said. “We’re letting the market make those choices but those choices have to be made in a fair and open market. We have to help consumers through that transition; it’s going to be bumpy because we have a traditional utility model that is trying to fit with this new transition and it has implications for rate designs, costs and business models.”

Greentech Media reports that Wellinghoff was a consumer advocate early in his career and has not changed sides. “Even though the FERC oversees wholesale markets, utilities, and other jurisdictional entities at the wholesale level, the consumer needs to be our major concern,” he said.

He said that rate structures need to be formulated in ways that “fully recognize the costs and benefits of distributed resources.” That may mean higher fixed costs than a variable energy rate, he said, but it was also important to note that there is value in distributed solar that can be captured and realized by the distribution utility that is not being paid to PV system owners “because they have not been analyzed, quantified, and monetized.”

[continued ...]

When it does, great, until it does, .........................

muso wrote on Aug 26^th, 2013 at 4:33pm:

+1 on a global HVDC grid.

But storage is also important  Solar with storage can provide dispachable power 24/7.  Something that old technologies like coal and uranium based nuclear simply cannot.

muso wrote on Aug 26^th, 2013 at 4:33pm:



Good idea except a coronal mass ejection from the sun
would then wipe out the world's power delivery.

Still - solar is the real future. 

muso wrote on Aug 26^th, 2013 at 4:33pm:

Anything that doesn't involve mining for fuel is worth considering. The tidal and geothermal resources to our near north west are substantial.

As it stands, storage is very near cost competitiveness. As the report suggests, that's going to be a game-changer.

# wrote on Aug 26^th, 2013 at 8:45pm:


I don't doubt you on that.......their only problem is to get everyone else of fossils fuels., they'll still be refining it for a very long time to come.

I'll only take up solar power when it allows me to power my own home from the Sun, cost effectively.

I won't buy into the current set - up...  and I certainly look forward to each new thing...  might even live to be self-sustaining.. 

muso wrote on Aug 26^th, 2013 at 10:01pm:


So how long would a battery last powering a tank or any heavy military vechile.

What about war ships and jet fighter planes....??????

Somehow I don't think so.