Costs are coming down in a hurry for renewables. Subsidies are less and less the driver, as costs per megawatt continue to squeeze carbon based production.
https://www.ge.com/reports/size-matters-next-big-thing-wind-turbines/
I lost track of a better article showing just how competitive these larger turbines make wind. Due to their diameter and height, they grab more power for longer periods, thus evening out the ups and downs and requiring less need for peak plants to supplement during low production.
Battery progress is going to be key as well to leveling out the need for peak plants.
Another article I have lost talked about the TVA having to revisit their 20 year plan after only 3 years due to the dramatic drop in need for coal plants... they are less and less cost effective purely from a demand standpoint. This article did not get into the health and enviro costs associated with coal.
Edit.
Ahh, found it.
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/3/8/17084158/wind-turbine-power-energy-blades
It will be impressive as an engineering feat, but the significance of growing turbine size goes well beyond that. Bigger turbines harvest more energy, more steadily; the bigger they get, the less variable and more reliable they get, and the easier they are to integrate into the grid. Wind is already
outcompeting other sources on wholesale energy markets. After a few more generations of growth, it won’t even be a contest anymore.
Edit. Here is a different take on Buffett’s strategy and one reason big power is scrambling...
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/2/27/17052488/electricity-demand-utilities
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The utility business model is headed for a reckoning
TVA, as a government-owned, fully regulated utility, has only the goals of “low cost, informed risk, environmental responsibility, reliability, diversity of power and flexibility to meet changing market conditions,” as its planning manager told the Times Free Press. (Yes, that’s already a lot of goals!)
But investor-owned utilities (IOUs), which administer electricity for well over half of Americans,face another imperative: to make money for investors. They can’t make money selling electricity; monopoly regulations forbid it. Instead, they make money by earning a rate of return on investments in electrical power plants and infrastructure.
The problem is, with demand stagnant, there’s not much need for new hardware. And a drop in investment means a drop in profit. Unable to continue the steady growth that their investors have always counted on, IOUs are treading water, watching as revenues dry up.