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A Year-End Update on Electricity Policy From the Field

December 28, 2017

The electricity sector’s competitive dynamic completely flipped in 2017.

It is now cheaper to build new wind and solar than new coal or often natural gas. In growing swaths of the country, it’s often cheaper to build new wind (and sometimes solar) than continuing to run existing coal plants. The implications are profound.

Utilities from Missouri, to Wisconsin, Minnesota and others have proposed early shutdowns of coal facilities, pointing to real customer affordability benefits from switching to cleaner power sources. Once-profitable merchant coal plants in Texas and Massachusetts retired or announced retirement, unable to compete with cheap natural gas and renewables.

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