The Cheapest Source of Electricity in History

It’s official. Guess what is the cheapest source of electricity in history!? Coal mining in early Industrial Revolution Great Britain? What about coal mining in West Virginia and Kentucky in the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries? How about the big, government funded dam projects in the Western United States during the New Deal Era? Or, what about the gas and fracking boom of recent lore that gets so much attention in the news? Good guesses, but none of them are correct. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA) annual World Energy Outlook on global energy production, consumption, and markets, “solar PV is now the cheapest source of electricity in history.” That’s right, solar PV! And while they buried that admission in an appendix portion of the report, those of us championing a just and sustainable future for all are celebrating, nonetheless.

We are currently living through the greatest transformation of our energy infrastructure – literally how everything in our lives is powered – since the first Industrial Revolution. In fact, solar (and wind!) are getting so popular so fast that the IEA had to revise its own estimate on solar adoption by an increase of 40% from just last year’s report! That’s impressive even to us in the solar business! Over the last year, RE-volv has helped to contribute to this impressive change by installing over one megawatt of solar PV across the United States. We are proud to be a part of this dramatic transformation of our shared world, and we look forward to an even brighter future in the years to come. 

By RE-volv Staff