Slowly but surely, plans for subsidy-free solar and even subsidy-free offshore wind are beginning to see the light of day, where the conditions are right.
Now Insider Media reports on a UK business park that is planning Britain's first subsidy-free, onsite solar farm—and it's going to be built at a scale (15 MW) that should make the 76-business location entirely carbon negative. Not only that, but the developers are promising an internal rate of return of 7% to the investors too.
I've said it before, but unsubsidized solar and wind is a very, very important milestone. Because the entrenched fossil fuel interests that would derail decarbonization will soon have one less tool to work with—namely the removal or reduction of subsidies is no longer the industry death knell it once would have been.
That's not to say subsidies don't matter. In a world where we prop up fossil fuels to the tune of billions, it's only right and proper that emerging technologies get public support—especially as they deliver significant public good.
But still, it's good to know that clean tech can increasingly survive on its own two feet when it has to. Because we all know that Big Energy is not going to stop its efforts to sabotage its progress.
