Wind energy and other renewables can now supply electricity at highly cost effective levels — and it’s happened so rapidly that public perception is yet to catch up.
All too often, conversations on renewable energy meander toward the same end: green technology is a nice thing, though it has to become economically viable before widespread adoption becomes the norm.
According to analyst Michael Taylor, this may have been the case 30 years ago, however today wind energy and other renewable technologies are producing electricity at costs that are comparable to their nonrenewable counterparts.
“Renewable power generation technologies can now provide electricity at very competitive levels,” says Taylor, a senior analyst at the International Renewable Energy Agency’s (IRENA) Renewable Energy Cost Status and Outlook division.
“Yet despite these facts, many of the world’s decision-makers have yet to grasp how competitive renewables have become. Often, vested interests lead to propagation of the myth of ‘costly’ renewable energy. In other cases, the change has simply come so fast, and so unexpectedly, that public information has yet to catch up.”
Click to read the full article at the Windtrust Website.