A $30-per-tonne carbon price would make Chinese rooftop- and ground-mounted solar installations cost-competitive with coal by 2020, according to a recent analysis by the International Energy Agency.
The study compared the cost of electricity generation across a range of technologies, including facilities that operated for 40 years on coal, or 25 years with solar photovoltaics.
“While there appears little doubt over China’s commitment to emissions trading, there is no prospect of a $30 carbon price in 2020,” Wynn writes. “But prices could reach such levels in the 2020s.”
The IEA’s analysis “suggested unsubsidized, ground-mounted solar power would break even with coal-fired power at a carbon price of around $25,” he explains. “Such growing competitiveness of solar may add to downward pressure on demand for coal, at present suffering from China’s economic slowdown and its growing crackdown on air pollution after the deadly smog in the winter of 2013, dubbed ‘airpocalypse.’”
