Solar now being the cheapest energy source made its rounds on Lemmy some weeks ago, if I remember correctly. I just found this graphic and felt it was worth sharing independently.
this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2023
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Are the renewables including cost of storage in this graphic? Batteries are a lot more needed with wind and solar since they aren't always available.
Also, I'd imagine nuclear would enjoy a similar level of success if there were more countries willing to invest in nuclear.
As far as I understand the description at the top of the image, no, storage is not included. But if production costs are insanely low, that of course does leave plenty room for storage or redundancy. In particular, personally I believe the costs will continue on a logarithmic drop and we're at the steep part of that, so even if it really is not the case today, I do expect solar production + storage to become cheaper in a not too distant future.
Also, as another graphic from the source article illustrates, battery costs are rapidly dropping, too:
They are aren't. This is anti nuclear propaganda. It's a waste of screen place. The data is outdated and completely manipulated.
So, what did you want me to do? Post the same graph, but black out the nuclear line, so no one can see it going upwards? I do find that data point interesting, too, but I would have posted this, even if it was just the solar dropping as it does.
Let’s add in the cost of batteries as their own thing, because they can be charged from anything and are far cheaper than other sources promoted as covering for gaps in renewables.
I don't know if this is a fair thing to do. Yes, we could charge it from any other source, but we aren't (intentionally) overgenerating power from sources like coal, gas, etc. Thus, the need for implementing that storage largely depends on renewables.
I also feel like factoring out the costs of storage implementation leaves more gaps for combustion generation supporters to criticize renewables. I would rather be honest about the upfront costs and instead emphasize the long term benefits of renewables, both in cost and cleanliness.