[font face=Serif][font size=5]Clean Energy Is About to Become Cheaper Than Coal[/font]

[font size=4]The inflection point has already been reached in the West, and by 2021 solar will be cheaper than coal in China.[/font]

by Jamie Condliffe | June 15, 2017

[font size=3]Donald Trump’s desire to bring coal roaring back has always faced a huge barrier in the form of an unstoppable decline in clean energy prices. But now a new report suggests that the falling costs are set to undercut coal sooner than many expected.

An analysis by Bloomberg New Energy Finance combines knowledge of planned energy projects with economic forecasting in order to predict what’s going to happen in the power sector over the coming decades. And the prediction is one of plummeting costs for renewables, with estimates suggesting that by 2040 prices will fall by 66 percent for solar, 47 percent for onshore wind, and 71 percent for offshore wind.

What really matters, of course, is how those prices will challenge incumbent energy technologies. Solar, the more expensive of the two major renewables, already rivals coal in cost terms in Germany, Australia, the U.S., Spain, and Italy, according to BNEF. But more striking is the fact that this is also expected to be the case in China and India by 2021.

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Coal's days appear to be numbered. Earlier this week, an analysis by the British oil firm BP showed that global coal demand has declined for the second year running, with consumption falling by 1.7 percent in 2016 compared to 2015. The decline is even more pronounced in the West: coal consumption fell by 8.8 percent in the U.S. during 2016, and as much as 52.5 percent in the U.K.

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