Enemies of Energy: Wind and solar energy are cheaper

Editor’s note: The following is an excerpt from the “Myths and Misconceptions” section of Enemies of Energy, a research report created for the Capital Research Center. The page for the full report is here: Enemies of Energy.

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According to an August 2025 report from the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), wind and solar energy systems have become cheaper than using hydrocarbon fuels to generate power:^[i]

With natural gas prices rising, and the costs of renewables declining, markets are quickly tipping. Before 2018, most clean energy projects were more expensive than their fossil fuel alternatives (on a levelized cost basis). But in 2024, more than 90 percent of installed renewable energy capacity was cheaper. [emphasis added]^[ii]

This myth about the alleged cost advantages of wind and solar is common to many of the anti-energy NGOs. The bolded words in the quote above refer to a metric known as the “Levelized Cost of Electricity” (or sometimes the “Levelized Cost of Energy”). LCOE was developed to compare power generators that are all more or less dispatchable, meaning they can be switched on as needed and run reliably until not needed.

Unique among all the ways we generate electricity, wind and solar are not dispatchable. They are weather dependent. Comparing them to reliable sources on the basis of total cost per kilowatt is deeply misleading because not all kilowatts are created equal.

Think of a typical paramedic who works regular shifts and is also on call to pitch in when there are more emergencies than usual. Compare him to a hypothetical non-dispatchable paramedic, who is paid less, but only works when he feels like it, not when car accidents happen. Which one is worth more? Isn’t one of them worth almost nothing?

Reliability is the gold standard of power generation. Dispatchable power stations that can be turned on quickly whenever demand peaks are much more valuable than power that arrives only when the wind blows or sun shines.

Conversely, energy that arrives when it isn’t needed and there’s nobody to use it can be as functionally worthless as that shiftless paramedic.

This is not the only flaw in using LCOE to compare reliable systems to unreliable ones.

For example, reliability of an electrical grid declines exponentially as more unreliable producers are added.

If the shiftless and needless paramedic is just one among a dozen emergency workers, then it might still be possible to schedule the other eleven around his laziness and keep the system from collapsing without further hiring. But if lazy paramedics become six out of a dozen—half the staff—then creative scheduling is no longer an option. A duplicative staff of reliable paramedics will need to be hired to cover for the unreliable ones, driving up costs further.

And when that happens, expect the fans of unreliable paramedics to put out reports boasting that the “levelized cost” of shiftless emergency workers is far less than the cost of those you can trust to show up when you’re bleeding.

The same is true of weather dependent power. As unreliable wind and solar energy are added, and reliable power stations replaced, the electrical grid logically becomes … less reliable.

If restoring reliability requires retaining (or adding back) reliable power stations, then the real cost of wind and solar should account for all the generators necessary to retain reliability.

Sometimes weather dependent power advocates try to evade this fact by claiming battery storage will do the job for them. But here again, reliable power generators—by definition—do not need batteries to retain reliability.

And battery backup might be even more expensive.

A 2018 report from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) estimated a $2.5 trillion price tag for using lithium-ion batteries to back up an American power grid that is 80 percent wind and solar dependent. (Yes, that’s $2,500,000,000,000.) ^[iii]

The MIT report correctly noted the insanity of this idea:

If we plan to rely on them for massive amounts of storage as more renewables come online—rather than turning to a broader mix of low-carbon sources like nuclear and natural gas with carbon capture technology—we could be headed down a dangerously unaffordable path. [emphasis added] ^[iv]

Wind and solar do indeed provide energy that is “cheaper,” but only cheaper in terms of quality, not in true cost.

PDF hyperlink to full report

Endnotes

[i] Atkinson, Will. “Volatility vs. Affordability: Globally, Renewables’ Cost Advantage Grew Last Year.” Rocky Mountain Institute. August 13, 2025. Accessed January 20, 2026. https://rmi.org/affordability-not-volatility-renewables-cost-advantage-grows/

[ii] Atkinson, Will. “Volatility vs. Affordability: Globally, Renewables’ Cost Advantage Grew Last Year.” Rocky Mountain Institute. August 13, 2025. Accessed January 20, 2026. https://rmi.org/affordability-not-volatility-renewables-cost-advantage-grows/

[iii] Temple, James. “The $2.5 trillion reason we can’t rely on batteries to clean up the grid.” MIT Technology Review. July 27, 2018. Accessed January 29, 2026. https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/07/27/141282/the-25-trillion-reason-we-cant-rely-on-batteries-to-clean-up-the-grid/

[iv] Temple, James. “The $2.5 trillion reason we can’t rely on batteries to clean up the grid.” MIT Technology Review. July 27, 2018. Accessed January 29, 2026. https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/07/27/141282/the-25-trillion-reason-we-cant-rely-on-batteries-to-clean-up-the-grid/

Source: https://capitalresearch.org/article/enemies-of-energy-wind-and-solar-energy-are-cheaper/