Waiting for cheaper renewables can cost more in the long run

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Waiting for the price to come down before switching to a new technology sounds like a frugal decision. But when it comes to a country's electrical grid, what saves you money now could actually cost you much more in the long run. That's the central conclusion of a new study led by Imperial College London's Clara Heuberger.

Almost every nation in the world (depending on how you categorize the United States' erratic behavior) has pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in pursuit of limiting global warming. A large component of that pledge is the conversion of electrical generation from fossil fuels to renewables. But there is a tension between the cheap and immediate availability of fossil fuels and the varied status of different renewable technologies.

Waiting for unicorns

It may make some economic sense to watch the price of solar continue its fall before installing. But there's also the temptation to wait for what the researchers categorize as "unicorn technologies"-things like next-generation batteries for grid-scale storage, cheaper systems for capturing carbon dioxide from power plants, or even fusion. In other words, there's a tendency to think that renewables aren't worth pursuing too hard until some game-changing, cheap technology comes along that revolutionizes the grid.

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