“Never” cannot be established by one
present price comparison.
A useful comparison is levelized cost with common financing, capacity and system boundaries. For
illustration, solar capital cost 1000
currency units/kW, annual capital-plus-
maintenance charge 8%, and
capacity factor 0.15 imply about 61 units/MWh.
A coal
plant with fuel,
maintenance and capital costs of the same order is not separated by an immutable physical barrier. These are illustrative inputs, not current price quotations.
Carbon costs and air
pollution can worsen coal'
s comparison;
intermittency, land and balancing costs can worsen solar'
s. Compare delivered services
as well
as panel-level
energy. The defensible
conclusion is contingent competition, not
a universal impossibility.
