Will Wind and Solar Raise Energy Prices? It Depends

American energy policy is currently locked in a fierce battle between people who say renewables will make electricity less expensive and people who say they won’t. You’d think there would be a reasonably clear answer to this question, but this a case where both sides have it wrong.

Environmentalists, citing the falling costs of wind turbines and photovoltaic panels, tend to agree with Bill McKibben that “power from the sun and wind is now the cheapest power in the world.” Meanwhile, Energy Secretary Chris Wright says that renewables “raise the system cost of electricity” because they are only intermittently available, and President Donald Trump’s administration is doing everything in its power to block their deployment.