| | October 20198Six Facts You Need to Know About Solar EnergyFor more than a decade, solar-powered energy has made a quiet but remarkable transformation. What was once a slow payback niche technology is now a high payback broad solution. At Soligent, we see this daily when supporting the thousands of solar installers across the country.Here are six surprising facts about solar.Less Than a Six-Year-Payback PeriodWhen solar first came to market, most businesses and home owners balked at the cost. However, in a stunning economic reversal, the price of turnkey solar has decreased almost 80 percent over the past decade and is expected to continue to fall. Today, most commercial solar investments are paid back within six years--and some are paid back as quickly as one year. (Most residential systems payback in eight years, though certain markets payback much faster.)To put this six-year period into perspective, you would get 19 years of free power on a system with a 25-year lifespan. For a business, this can easily be millions of dollars of savings. For a household, this is often upwards of $20,000 of savings.Beyond that, the cost of a large utility scale solar system is substantially lower than coal, oil, nuclear, or gas in many markets. Two utility-scale projects sold as power-purchase-agreements from a developer to the utility (one in Nevada and one in California) had respective energy prices of $0.035 per kilowatt hour for power and storage and $0.02for power alone. Lazard's analysis of the levelized cost of energy for other fuel sources at scale are substantially higher and roughly $0.057 for By Jonathan Doochin, CEO, Soligent Holdings, Soligent Distribution & Stellar Energy GP coal, $0.109 for nuclear, $0.035 for gas combined cycle, and $0.142 for gas peaking large-scale plants. These are market transforming prices.The Economics Continue To Dramatically Improve Solar prices are expected to drop 71 percent by 2050driving a further wedge between solar and traditional electricity sources, while electricity prices are expected to increase approximately 2.5 percent per year, with many local markets seeing much steeper climbs in pricing. Though the 30 percent federal tax credit for solar is decreasing by the end of 2021 to 10 percent for utility and commercial solar and 0 percent for purchased residential solar systems, almost all major research publications forecast that solar will continue its growth--even with the impact of tariffs on solar equipment. After all, technology cost reductions, huge efficiency gains, and soft cost reductions (permitting, installation, etc.) are driving the solar economy far more than offsetting tariffs.Solar Is Emerging as the World's Dominant Electricity Source Last year, 45 percent of newly installed electricity production around the world was renewable, and 30 percent of those were solar. Moreover, Bloomberg New Energy Finance expects the electricity market to be 55 percent renewable by 2050. Facilities that provide solar and storage allow for localized power production that can cover the base load needs day and night. Solar facilities are often closer to the point of need, faster to construct, and highly cost-effective, avoiding some of the expensive substation and line upgrades associated with construction of remote power plants that drive power over IN MY OPINION
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