Electricity generation started off as an extension of science. These days, it’s all about vanity and virtue signalling. Not least those millions of shiny solar panels, which we’ve all helped subsidise – to allow our neighbours to bask in their own virtuous glow.
At the theoretical level – when the sun is up and the sky is cloud free – solar panels are generating electricity around 6.5 hours a day (on average). During their most virtuous cycle, they’re dispatching power back into the grid, and reducing their owner’s power bills (attracting feed in tariffs multiples greater than the value of the electricity itself – initially some states were paying figures in the order of $540 per MWh – coal-fired power costs less than $40).
Those without panels pick up the tab for the subsidies gifted to their neighbours (whether in the form of feed in tariffs or renewable energy certificates)…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
Feb 27, 2019 @ 19:07:13
given that it is the least well off that have taken oup solar panels and so the well off is subsidizing them I am okay with that.
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Feb 27, 2019 @ 19:08:20
Why does wind and solar need subsidies when hydro doesn’t?
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Feb 27, 2019 @ 19:39:09
not the point of the article. all would benefit from a price on carbon so negative externalities were taken off. No need for any subsidies then
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Feb 27, 2019 @ 20:18:53
Why is hydro competitive without subsidies.
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