Will solar energy ever make it? We've been funding research for ages. It won't ever pay off. Do you take me for a fool? Sure, it might work in sub-Saharan Africa and isolated islands, but never in the U.S.A.

I don't take you for a fool--I just want to show the bigger picture. So much gets buried in politics and This research and support is actually paying off. For example, Deutsche Bank recently released their analysis of the prospects of solar energy and found that it is already competative in many locations, including the U.S. They state that "unsubsidized costs of solar energy are [currently] 30 %-40 % below the retail price of electricity in many markets globally." You can see how these prices compare in the plot above. Even in the U.S., they find that solar energy is competitive in more than 14 states without additional subsidies. Planners have been increasingly turning to solar energy because the economics are starting to work out! 

"Grid parity" describes when an alternative energy source can generate power at a levelized cost of electricity (the price of building and operating a power plant over the plant's lifetime and duty cycle) less than or equal to the price of electricity from typical sources in the gird. Check out this chart from the Deutsche Bank report showing how costs compare on a state-by-state basis. 

Source: NREL

Source: Deutsche Bank

 You can see in the chart below how many states are already at grid parity, as well as the states that are fairly close and anticipated to reach grid parity within the next few years.

Source: Deutsche Bank

Yes, there are some issues using the LCOE, or levelized cost of energy, as a metric since solar energy can't be randomly deployed (and depends on the sun), but it has been shown that solar cells produce the most energy when energy is most needed (peak load), making this issue less relevant. As long as solar energy comprises less than ~20 % of the total energy used, this behavior should be beneficial. After that point, however, it becomes much more difficult (but not impossible, especially if batteries are introduced) to manage load changes. Stay tuned Friday to find out what ducks have to do with understanding this phenomenon!