SEIA Says Solar Still Cheapest Source Of Electricity, Australia Unveils Free Solar Plan – CleanTechnica

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The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA)  is obviously concerned by the full frontal assault on renewable energy being conducted by the Moron of Mar-A-Loco and his henchmen. In a blog post this week, it argued that solar will blow away all other forms of electricity generation — if they all compete on a level playing field.

Now, we know the Repugnicans for generations have been screaming at the top of their lungs about a level playing field and how government shouldn’t be picking winners and losers in the marketplace. Hopefully everyone knows by now that those are lies they tell in order to secure an unfair advantage for themselves and their fossil fuel buddies.

Need proof? Chris Wright, the so-called energy secretary, is running around the world threatening other countries with punishing tariffs if they don’t buy more LNG and coal from the US. Doug Burgum, the presidential jock sniffer masquerading as the interior secretary is using all the powers at his disposal to promote fossil fuel exploration on public lands while putting up as many barriers to renewable energy installations on those same lands as possible.

These people have no interest in a level playing field — none! There only interest is preserving their profits, which are tied to the direct and indirect subsidies they enjoy as a result of their control over compliant legislatures who were elected largely as a result of campaign donations from fossil fuel interests. If that sounds like corruption to you, you’re not wrong.

The SEIA Manifesto

Here’s what the SEIA had to say:

In America, we pride ourselves on our free market system where innovation thrives. It’s this commitment to fair competition that has driven America’s leadership on the global stage — leading the world in everything from the development of life saving medicines to cutting edge technologies that have changed the world.

The energy industry is no different. Competition has driven major advances in efficiency and cost reductions across technologies. The meteoric growth of the solar industry has been enabled by the technology’s rapid cost declines since the early 2010s, and module prices are a fraction of what they once cost.

But today, these free market and fair competition foundations are under threat. Despite claiming to want clean energy to compete on a level playing field with fossil fuels, Energy Secretary Chris Wright and the other architects of this administration’s energy policy have put their thumb on the scale in favor of their preferred technologies. If this is what they think it means to build on America’s legacy of free and fair competition, they are sorely mistaken.

The SEIA points out that fossil fuels have always enjoyed massive subsidies from state and federal governments. It claims that, according to the Fossil Fuel Subsidy Tracker, fossil fuels received over $16 billion in subsidies in 2023. Oil Change International says the fossil fuel industries pocketed $30 billion in 2024. Does that sound like a level playing field to you?

These subsidies are obscured deep in the tax code, SEIA says. They make it possible for fossil fuel companies to deduct the value of drilling costs from their taxes, which Taxpayers for Common Sense says disproportionately benefits the fossil fuel companies by allowing them to avoid the capitalization rules applying to other taxpayers. Again, does that sound like a level playing field to you?

While Congress was taking a sledgehammer to tax credits for clean energy, it added a new tax credit for metallurgical coal. Last month, Chris Wright said his department was going to give away $625 million in grants to keep aging coal-fired generating stations operating past their planned useful life.

“This is picking winners and losers, SEIA says. “At a moment of skyrocketing demand, we need the market to decide how to meet that demand. And what does the market choose every time? The cheapest, quickest to build energy sources. Solar energy is the most cost effective form of new electricity generation in the United States, even without subsidies [emphasis added]. It’s fast to deploy, requires no fuel, and delivers predictable, American-made power to millions of Americans.

“Solar is poised to stand entirely on its own. As federal incentives phase down, solar will remain the cheapest and quickest to market solution to meet America’s growing energy needs. The sky’s the limit for the solar industry — but only if we let the free market, not politics, decide our energy future.” Heavens, we can’t have that….can we?

A straight-up winner-take-all competition for all forms of energy with no subsidies? How could coal, oil, and methane producers possibly compete with such an unfair, dare we say un-American business proposition? And that is precisely the point. They can’t — full stop.

Free Electricity In Australia

Australia has a more enlightened view of solar energy. It has just announced a new plan that will provide utility customers in New South Wales and  South Australia with free solar power for up to three hours a day. CleanTechnica readers will be familiar with this approach, as it is in effect a time-of-use load-shifting strategy that will be familiar to some EV owners.

According to Reuters, Australian energy minister Chris Bowen said this week, “People who are able to move electricity use into the zero-cost power period will benefit directly, whether they have solar panels or not and whether they own or rent, and the more people take up the offer and move their use, the greater the system benefits that lower costs for all electricity users will be.”

Because there are more than four million rooftop solar systems installed on homes in Australia, they generate so much electricity during the sunniest part of the day that electricity prices swing into the negative, while peak demand is often several hours later, putting strain on the grid.

Even those who live in apartments or do not have a rooftop solar system of their own will will be able to take advantage of the program, provided they have a smart meter installed. With that one upgrade, they will be able to use the free electricity to operate their energy intensive appliances such as stoves and water heaters or charge their electric cars during the peak sunlight hours. In 2022, Bowen set a target of 82% renewable electricity by 2030, in addition to the legislated target of a 43% reduction in emissions over the levels in 2005.

An End To Privilege

People who are used to privileges do extraordinary things to try to hold on to them. The fossil fuel industry has been propped up by government subsidies for over 150 years. Now the SEIA is saying, give up the things that tilt the economics in your favor and let’s see who wins in a fair fight between sunlight and million year old coal, oil, and methane deposits. Go ahead. We double dog dare you!