Game changer: Cheap renewables are causing rethink on markets

Inthe spring of 2009, Mark Parkinson, then governor of Kansas, was considering a request from Sunflower Electric to build a new coal-fired generator in Holcomb, a small town in the western half of the state.

Parkinson, eager to draw more wind developers to Kansas, said he would authorize the project if Sunflower backed a plan to source 20 percent of the state’s electricity from renewables by 2020.

From the outset, it sounded like a fair bargain. Sunflower would get its coal plant, and Parkinson could begin the slow, arduous and costly work of revamping the state’s electric grid.

Then, something unexpected happened.

Over the next few years, the cost of renewable energy plummeted. Kansas blew past its renewable energy target and now generates 30 percent of its electricity from wind.

And the Sunflower coal plant? It has yet to be built.High costs and legal challenges have kept the project in limbo.

Wind and solar are now cheap enough to compete with coal and gas across much of the country — even without subsidies.

Fossil fuels once had little to fear from renewable energy, but that’s no longer the case. Last year, wind and solar made up two-thirds of new U.S. generating capacity.

Today, wind technician and solar installer rank among the fastest-growing jobs in the United States.

But, falling costs and soaring popularity won’t be enough to sustain renewables. Clean energy has reached an inflection point. It threatens to upend the status quo, and entrenched interests are fighting back.

The rise of wind and solar threaten to eat away at oil and gas profits. New rooftop solar installations are cutting into the core business of power utilities by allowing homeowners to generate their own electricity. And new wind farms are transforming landscapes, sparking backlash from environmentalists.