The cost of renewable energy production has continued to decrease year over year. For storage, it is a similar trend. For solar, wind and battery storage we are starting to see that they can provide a positive business case without subsidies, something which can not be said for fossil fuels.
With prices having dropped so significantly, we are also seeing that the three components are being used together in one location. Previously it was costly enough to construct a wind or solar farm, but now when those are combined several benefits pop up:
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Solar and Wind tend to balance out over the year, leading to a more balanced production profile. Not perfect, but they complement one another.
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Required grid capacity or grid connection is also less. Instead of two separate connections, designed for the max load of either solar or wind, you can suffice with a cheaper connection as the load is shared and spread.
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The addition of storage acts as a catalyst, helping to balance things out even more and lowering the maximum capacity required of the grid connection.
The things that we could think of 10-15 years ago, but were too expensive. With these messages like the one from Vattenfall, they are getting here now today!
