Goldman Sachs Declares Solar Energy Will Soon Be Cheaper Than Fossil Fuels.

Over a dozen regional markets around the globe have reached the point where PV solar panels can match or undercut local electricity prices without government subsidy. With big decreases in battery storage costs (mainly because of improved electric car technologies), home energy storage is now cheap enough to be a viable for households to traditional grids. Goldman Sachs said that the renewable energy sector is one of the most compelling and attractive markets. Now they’ve gone a step further. According to the firm’s recent report, not only is solar power a good investment, it’s also going to to make fossil fuels obsolete. This is just one more example of how the financial sector is fueling the renewable energy revolution. “…our Clean Energy team believes the number of households hitting grid parity will continue to grow as the cost of the systems comes down…SolarCity has seen a 40% decline in the per watt cost of PV panels since the second quarter of 2013 driven by improved scale which is expected to continue,” state clean tech analysts Brian Lee and Thomas Daniels. “This has been true for Tesla’s battery costs as well, which have declined from of $500/KWh in 2008 to $250/KWh for the Model S to potentially $125/KWh at the gigafactory. As a result we should note that the quantitative grid parity and return calculations we show above are arrived at without any Federal or state credits.” Having an electric car parked in the garage being powered-up by solar is already a reality in South Australia. Over 20% of all households in South Australia have solar PV on their roof with even a greater number having Solar hot water systems as well. The hostility to renewable energy of the newly elected state government has not stopped this trend as subsidies are no longer needed (as per Goldman Sachs).