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2015's Electricity Retirements: 80 Percent Coal Plants (arstechnica.com)
AmiMoJo writes: In the US, electricity demand is growing very slowly, which means that capacity additions don't have to exceed retirements by much in order to keep the grid functioning. Tracking the comings and goings from the electric grid can help provide a picture of the country's changing energy mix. The Energy Information Administration, which provides data on the US' electric grid, says 18GW of capacity were retired this past year, more than 80 percent of it coal-fired. More than 27GW of utility-scale projects will replace that this year. Note that much of the new generating hardware is wind and solar, but the plants being replaced often had low capacity factors due to their age and high pollutant output.
Fair enough. Total install cost for a 7800W array in 2014 was $19k and I got back around $6k total in tax credits. Xcel lets you bank electricity with no expiration so what extra I produce in the summer carries over to Jan and Feb. The first year I lived in the house my total electricity bill was around $1100 so my break even point is around 11 years assuming rates don't go up (which they have already). I'm planning on an electric car in the next few years which cuts down the payback period even more. The panels are guaranteed to retain 80% capacity at 20 years and will likely output substantial power for at least 40. Throw in a few replacement panels and an inverter or two over that time and I'm still looking at 30-40 years of electricity for the cost of about 10 from the grid.
That said, I just saw that Xcel has proposed a grid use charge for new solar installs that will change the math somewhat. But when it goes into effect in 2 years, prices for solar will likely have fallen enough to still make sense in most cases. Cheap, effective whole house batteries that will get you through a week of rain aren't far behind.
I should stop there but....the nice thing about the tax benefits I received is that many more people can now benefit from them since they helped drive down the cost of solar by a huge amount in just a few years. One of the reasons so many solar companies went out of business is because if they held any inventory, it was pretty much unsaleable because next month's panels were better and cheaper. I know talking about such things is a can of worms but in my opinion, this is exactly what the gov is supposed to do: solve the chicken and egg problem by incentivize promising new tech resulting in new markets for average consumers. And now I'll hand it over to ./ for all the free market backlash.