IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v39y2011i11p7290-7297.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Solar power generation in the US: Too expensive, or a bargain?

Author

Listed:
  • Perez, Richard
  • Zweibel, Ken
  • Hoff, Thomas E.

Abstract

This article identifies the combined value that solar electric power plants deliver to utilities' rate payers and society's tax payers. Benefits that are relevant to utilities and their rate payers include traditional, measures of energy and capacity. Benefits that are tangible to tax payers include environmental, fuel price mitigation, outage risk protection, and long-term economic growth components. Results for the state of New York suggest that solar electric installations deliver between 15 and 40¢/kWh to ratepayers and tax payers. These results provide economic justification for the existence of payment structures (often referred to as incentives) that transfer value from those who benefit from solar electric generation to those who invest in solar electric generation.

Suggested Citation

  • Perez, Richard & Zweibel, Ken & Hoff, Thomas E., 2011. "Solar power generation in the US: Too expensive, or a bargain?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(11), pages 7290-7297.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:39:y:2011:i:11:p:7290-7297
    DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2011.08.052
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421511006495
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.enpol.2011.08.052?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Zweibel, Ken, 2010. "Should solar photovoltaics be deployed sooner because of long operating life at low, predictable cost?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(11), pages 7519-7530, November.
    2. Hoff, Thomas E & Wenger, Howard J & Farmer, Brian K, 1996. "Distributed generation : An alternative to electric utility investments in system capacity," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 137-147, February.
    3. Letendre, Steven E. & Perez, Richard, 2006. "Understanding the Benefits of Dispersed Grid-Connected Photovoltaics: From Avoiding the Next Major Outage to Taming Wholesale Power Markets," The Electricity Journal, Elsevier, vol. 19(6), pages 64-72, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. John Byrne & Job Taminiau & Kyung Nam Kim & Jeongseok Seo & Joohee Lee, 2016. "A solar city strategy applied to six municipalities: integrating market, finance, and policy factors for infrastructure‐scale photovoltaic development in Amsterdam, London, Munich, New York, Seoul, an," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Energy and Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 5(1), pages 68-88, January.
    2. Bhatti, Abdul Rauf & Salam, Zainal, 2018. "A rule-based energy management scheme for uninterrupted electric vehicles charging at constant price using photovoltaic-grid system," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 384-400.
    3. Adesanya, Adewale A. & Pearce, Joshua M., 2019. "Economic viability of captive off-grid solar photovoltaic and diesel hybrid energy systems for the Nigerian private sector," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 1-1.
    4. Liévanos, Raoul S. & Horne, Christine, 2017. "Unequal resilience: The duration of electricity outages," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 201-211.
    5. Oliva H., Sebastian & Passey, Rob & Abdullah, Md Abu, 2019. "A semi-empirical financial assessment of combining residential photovoltaics, energy efficiency and battery storage systems," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 206-214.
    6. Rutovitz, Jay & Oliva H., Sebastian & McIntosh, Lawrence & Langham, Ed & Teske, Sven & Atherton, Alison & Kelly, Scott, 2018. "Local network credits and local electricity trading: Results of virtual trials and the policy implications," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 324-334.
    7. Job Taminiau & John Byrne, 2020. "City‐scale urban sustainability: Spatiotemporal mapping of distributed solar power for New York City," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Energy and Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(5), September.
    8. Peter Cappers & Andrew Satchwell & Will Gorman & Javier Reneses, 2019. "Financial Impacts of Net-Metered Distributed PV on a Prototypical Western Utility’s Shareholders and Ratepayers," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(24), pages 1-19, December.
    9. Breyer, Christian & Koskinen, Otto & Blechinger, Philipp, 2015. "Profitable climate change mitigation: The case of greenhouse gas emission reduction benefits enabled by solar photovoltaic systems," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 610-628.
    10. Kumari, Pratima & Toshniwal, Durga, 2021. "Long short term memory–convolutional neural network based deep hybrid approach for solar irradiance forecasting," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 295(C).
    11. Byrne, John & Taminiau, Job & Kurdgelashvili, Lado & Kim, Kyung Nam, 2015. "A review of the solar city concept and methods to assess rooftop solar electric potential, with an illustrative application to the city of Seoul," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 830-844.
    12. Oliva H., Sebastian & MacGill, Iain & Passey, Rob, 2016. "Assessing the short-term revenue impacts of residential PV systems on electricity customers, retailers and network service providers," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 1494-1505.
    13. Perez, Richard & Rábago, Karl R. & Trahan, Mike & Rawlings, Lyle & Norris, Ben & Hoff, Tom & Putnam, Morgan & Perez, Marc, 2016. "Achieving very high PV penetration – The need for an effective electricity remuneration framework and a central role for grid operators," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 27-35.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jenner, Steffen & Groba, Felix & Indvik, Joe, 2013. "Assessing the strength and effectiveness of renewable electricity feed-in tariffs in European Union countries," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 385-401.
    2. Detroja, Ketan P., 2016. "Optimal autonomous microgrid operation: A holistic view," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 173(C), pages 320-330.
    3. Robinson, Scott A. & Rai, Varun, 2015. "Determinants of spatio-temporal patterns of energy technology adoption: An agent-based modeling approach," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 273-284.
    4. Firouzjah, Khalil Gorgani, 2018. "Assessment of small-scale solar PV systems in Iran: Regions priority, potentials and financial feasibility," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 267-274.
    5. Mirzahosseini, Alireza Hajiseyed & Taheri, Taraneh, 2012. "Environmental, technical and financial feasibility study of solar power plants by RETScreen, according to the targeting of energy subsidies in Iran," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 16(5), pages 2806-2811.
    6. Poudineh, Rahmatallah & Jamasb, Tooraj, 2014. "Distributed generation, storage, demand response and energy efficiency as alternatives to grid capacity enhancement," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 222-231.
    7. Bertolini, Marina & D’Alpaos, Chiara & Moretto, Michele, 2016. "Investing in Photovoltaics: Timing, Plant Sizing and Smart Grids Flexibility," MITP: Mitigation, Innovation and Transformation Pathways 244540, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    8. Tomosk, Steve & Haysom, Joan E. & Wright, David, 2017. "Quantifying economic risk in photovoltaic power projects," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 422-433.
    9. Wang, Tiantian & Wang, Yanhua & Wang, Ke & Fu, Sha & Ding, Li, 2024. "Five-dimensional assessment of China's centralized and distributed photovoltaic potential: From solar irradiation to CO2 mitigation," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 356(C).
    10. Hernández-Moro, J. & Martínez-Duart, J.M., 2013. "Analytical model for solar PV and CSP electricity costs: Present LCOE values and their future evolution," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 20(C), pages 119-132.
    11. Cartelle Barros, Juan José & Lara Coira, Manuel & de la Cruz López, María Pilar & del Caño Gochi, Alfredo, 2015. "Assessing the global sustainability of different electricity generation systems," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 473-489.
    12. Montero, Francisco J. & Kumar, Ramesh & Lamba, Ravita & Escobar, Rodrigo A. & Vashishtha, Manish & Upadhyaya, Sushant & Guzmán, Amador M., 2022. "Hybrid photovoltaic-thermoelectric system: Economic feasibility analysis in the Atacama Desert, Chile," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 239(PB).
    13. Schachter, J.A. & Mancarella, P., 2016. "A critical review of Real Options thinking for valuing investment flexibility in Smart Grids and low carbon energy systems," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 261-271.
    14. Moreira, Nuno Afonso & Monteiro, Eliseu & Ferreira, Sergio, 2007. "Transposition of the EU cogeneration directive: A vision for Portugal," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(11), pages 5747-5753, November.
    15. Dehwah, Ammar H.A. & Asif, Muhammad, 2019. "Assessment of net energy contribution to buildings by rooftop photovoltaic systems in hot-humid climates," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 1288-1299.
    16. Martín-Martínez, F. & Sánchez-Miralles, A. & Rivier, M. & Calvillo, C.F., 2017. "Centralized vs distributed generation. A model to assess the relevance of some thermal and electric factors. Application to the Spanish case study," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 850-863.
    17. Ramzi Saidi & Jean-Christophe Olivier & Mohamed Machmoum & Eric Chauveau, 2021. "Cascaded Centered Moving Average Filters for Energy Management in Multisource Power Systems with a Large Number of Devices," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-21, June.
    18. Monteiro, Eliseu & Moreira, Nuno Afonso & Ferreira, Sérgio, 2009. "Planning of micro-combined heat and power systems in the Portuguese scenario," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 86(3), pages 290-298, March.
    19. Zhang, Minhui & Zhang, Qin, 2020. "Grid parity analysis of distributed photovoltaic power generation in China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    20. Yuan, Jiahai & Sun, Shenghui & Zhang, Wenhua & Xiong, Minpeng, 2014. "The economy of distributed PV in China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 939-949.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Solar energy; Value; Cost;
    All these keywords.

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:39:y:2011:i:11:p:7290-7297. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.