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Claim analyzed
Science“Solar and wind power are the cheapest sources of new electricity generation in most major markets.”
Submitted by Vicky
The conclusion
Current evidence broadly supports the statement for utility-scale solar PV and onshore wind. Major recent analyses from the IEA, EIA, BloombergNEF, Wood Mackenzie, and Lazard generally find them to be the cheapest new-build options in many large markets. The key limitation is that this is mostly an LCOE comparison; full system costs and some regional gas markets can change the ranking.
Caveats
- “Cheapest” usually refers to plant-level levelized cost of energy for utility-scale solar PV and onshore wind, not total system cost after storage, balancing, and grid upgrades.
- The claim does not apply equally to all technologies: offshore wind and rooftop solar are often much more expensive than utility-scale onshore wind and utility-scale solar.
- Some major-market regions, especially gas-rich areas, can still favor new gas generation, and subsidies or tax credits can materially affect comparisons.
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Sources
Sources used in the analysis
Renewables are set to contribute 80% of new power capacity to 2030 in the STEPS, with solar PV alone accounting for more than half. Solar PV and wind have become the lowest-cost sources of new electricity generation in most regions, undercutting fossil fuels even without subsidies in many cases.
In AEO2025, we project higher solar PV capacity additions compared with that of onshore wind in 2030, even though the LCOE, on average, is higher. Regional and U.S. average levelized cost of electricity and capacity additions in AEO2025 Reference case. [Table shows PTC-supported solar PV and onshore wind with competitive LCOEs alongside advanced nuclear, gas, and coal technologies, indicating renewables' projected dominance in new builds despite some higher average LCOEs.]
Levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) is the estimate of the revenue required to build and operate a generator over a specified cost recovery period. The value-cost ratio (the ratio of LACE-to-LCOE/S) provides a more intuitive framework for understanding economic competitiveness between generation technologies in the capacity expansion decisions than is possible using either LCOE/S or LACE metric individually.
In the US, the levelized cost of new solar and wind generation is lower than new natural gas combined cycle plants in most regions when considering production tax credits, but without subsidies, gas remains competitive in some areas.
Unsubsidized utility-scale solar and onshore wind continue to remain the lowest-cost new-build power sources in the US for the 10th year in a row. The average LCOE of utility-scale solar PV ranges from $38/MWh to $78/MWh and $37/MWh to $86/MWh for onshore wind, compared to the LCOE of a gas combined cycle which varies from $48/MWh to $109/MWh.
Lazard's 2025 LCOE+ report highlights that, despite headwinds and macroeconomic challenges, renewables remain the most cost-competitive form of new-build generation on an unsubsidized basis (i.e., without tax subsidies). As such, renewable energy will continue to play a key role in the buildout of new power generation in the U.S.
The report covers gas and coal supply and demand, renewable energy technologies, electricity markets, energy efficiency, access to energy, demand side management and much more. [Provides detailed LCOE comparisons across scenarios, showing solar and wind increasingly competitive but varying by market and integration costs.]
Official U.S. government repository of Lazard's LCOE analysis showing comparative cost data for solar PV (utility and rooftop), onshore and offshore wind, and conventional generation sources including natural gas and coal.
The IEA says that new utility-scale solar projects now cost $30-60/MWh in Europe and the US and just $20-40/MWh in China and India. 'For projects with low-cost financing that tap high-quality resources, solar PV is now the cheapest source of electricity in history.' These costs are entirely below the range of LCOE for new coal-fired power plants.
Solar PV and onshore wind are now the cheapest sources of new-build generation for at least two-thirds of the global population – in locations that comprise 71% of gross domestic product and 85% of energy generation. The global benchmark levelized cost of electricity, or LCOE, for onshore wind and utility-scale PV, has fallen 9% and 4% since the second half of 2019 – to $44 and $50/MWh, respectively. Today, onshore wind is $37 in the U.S. and $30 in Brazil, while solar is $38 in China, the cheapest sources of new electricity in those countries.
Renewable energy will overtake coal to become the world’s top source of electricity 'by 2026 at the latest', according to new forecasts from the International Energy Agency (IEA). The share of global electricity generation coming from wind and solar combined will rise to nearly 20% in 2026.
Solar and wind are the cheapest new-build technologies in most regions globally, driving over 70% of capacity additions through 2030. However, in some high-penetration markets, system costs like storage and grid upgrades must be factored in.
Solar photovoltaic technology will maintain its position as the world's most cost-competitive power generation source through 2025, with single-axis tracker systems in the Middle East and Africa leading at US$37/Megawatt hour (MWh). Utility-scale solar photovoltaic delivers the lowest generation costs regionwide [in Asia Pacific], with LCOE spanning US$27/MWh in China to US$118/MWh in Japan by 2025. Onshore wind emerges as a highly cost-competitive option, with China, India and Vietnam achieving global leadership at US$25-70/MWh. The global energy transition is accelerating at an unprecedented pace, with renewable technologies achieving cost parity with conventional generation across all major markets.
The cost of clean power technologies such as wind, solar and battery technologies are expected to fall further by 2-11% in 2025, breaking last year’s record. According to a latest report by research provider BloombergNEF (BNEF), new wind and solar farms are already undercutting new coal and gas plants on production cost in almost every market globally. New solar plants, even without subsidies, are within touching distance of new US gas plants.
Wind and solar renewable energy technologies have seen substantial cost declines over the past decade. Between 2010 and 2024, the cost of utility-scale solar photovoltaics fell 90 percent, and the cost of onshore wind fell 70 percent. Renewables made up 22 percent of U.S. electricity generation in 2023, with wind and solar increasing seven-fold since 2010.
For the 10th consecutive year, solar and wind outcompete fossil fuels in US power generation costs. Unsubsidized utility-scale solar and onshore wind technologies remain the most cost-competitive sources of new-build electricity generation in the US, for the 10th consecutive year, according to the latest Lazard analysis.
The results indicate that by 2024, the LCOE of large-scale renewable energy installations will be significantly lower than the operating costs of conventional power plants, especially for onshore wind and ground-mounted PV systems. Figure 17 shows the LCOE for 2024 for lignite, hard coal, gas CCGTs, nuclear plants, and fuel cells.
The Lazard report shows that the lowest cost for new energy deployments are utility-scale solar, utility-scale onshore wind, natural gas and geothermal. Utility-scale solar is now one of the cheapest forms of electricity to generate, at $0.029–$0.092/kWh, while rooftop solar costs 3–4 times more, at $0.12–$0.28/kWh.
Multiple authoritative reports (IRENA, IEA, BNEF) confirm that unsubsidized LCOE for solar PV and onshore wind has fallen below new coal and gas in most global markets by 2024-2025, though full system costs including storage and grid may alter comparisons in high-penetration scenarios.
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Expert review
3 specialized AI experts evaluated the evidence and arguments.
Expert 1 — The Logic Examiner
The evidence chain is direct and robust: Sources 1, 5, 6, 10, 12, and 13 from high-authority institutions (IEA, Lazard, BloombergNEF, Wood Mackenzie) all independently confirm via LCOE analysis that solar PV and onshore wind are the cheapest new-build generation sources in most regions globally, with Source 5 noting this holds on an unsubsidized basis for ten consecutive years in the US. The opponent's counterarguments rest on two logical moves: (1) citing Source 4's caveat that gas 'remains competitive in some areas' to refute a claim qualified as 'most major markets' — this is a fallacy of exception that does not logically negate the 'most' qualifier; and (2) conflating system-integration costs (LACE, storage, grid upgrades) with the LCOE of new generation, which is the specific metric the claim addresses. The proponent correctly identifies these as the fallacy of exception and a conflation error. The opponent's 'composition fallacy' accusation against the proponent is itself weak — the claim says 'most major markets,' and the evidence covers regions comprising 71% of global GDP and explicitly names major markets (US, China, India, Europe), so the inference from 'most regions' to 'most major markets' is not a composition fallacy but a direct scope match. The claim is therefore logically well-supported by the evidence with only minor caveats about integration costs in high-penetration scenarios, which do not negate the core LCOE claim.
Expert 2 — The Context Analyst
The claim is well-supported by multiple authoritative sources (IEA, Lazard, BloombergNEF, Wood Mackenzie) confirming solar and wind are the cheapest new-build electricity sources in most major markets on a levelized cost basis, even unsubsidized. However, the claim omits important context: (1) LCOE is not the only relevant metric — system integration costs including storage and grid upgrades can alter competitiveness in high-penetration markets (Sources 3, 12, 7); (2) natural gas remains competitive without subsidies in some regions of major markets like the US (Source 4); (3) the claim conflates plant-level generation cost with full system cost, which matters increasingly as renewable penetration rises; and (4) offshore wind and rooftop solar are notably more expensive than utility-scale onshore alternatives. That said, the core claim — that solar and wind are cheapest in 'most major markets' — is substantiated by the overwhelming weight of evidence from highly credible sources, and the qualifications noted are relatively minor caveats that do not overturn the general conclusion. The claim holds up with full context, with only modest framing issues around the completeness of the cost metric used.
Expert 3 — The Source Auditor
High-authority, independent sources—the IEA's World Energy Outlook 2023 (Source 1) and major government analysis from the U.S. EIA (Sources 2 and 4), alongside widely cited cost benchmarking from Lazard (Source 5) and global market research from BloombergNEF and Wood Mackenzie (Sources 12–14, 13)—all broadly indicate that new-build solar PV and onshore wind are at or near the lowest LCOE in most regions/markets, with explicit caveats that rankings can vary by region and when integration/system costs are included. Taken together, the most trustworthy evidence supports the claim's core (“cheapest in most major markets”) but not as an absolute across every region or under all system-cost frameworks, so the claim is mostly true rather than unqualifiedly true.
Expert summary
The arguments
Two AI advocates debated this claim using the research gathered.
Argument for
The IEA's World Energy Outlook 2023 (Source 1) explicitly states that 'solar PV and wind have become the lowest-cost sources of new electricity generation in most regions, undercutting fossil fuels even without subsidies in many cases,' a conclusion independently corroborated by Lazard (Source 5 and Source 6), which found solar and wind to be the cheapest unsubsidized new-build power sources in the US for ten consecutive years, BloombergNEF (Source 10 and Source 12), which confirmed solar and wind are cheapest in regions covering 71% of global GDP, and Wood Mackenzie (Source 13), which documented cost parity across all major markets in 2025. The convergence of these highly authoritative, independent sources — spanning international agencies, financial analysts, and energy research firms — constitutes an overwhelming consensus that the claim is unambiguously true.
The Proponent's argument commits a composition fallacy by treating broad “most regions/most of the world” statements as proof for “most major markets,” while ignoring the brief's explicit qualifiers that competitiveness varies by region and that in a major market like the U.S. gas can still be competitive without subsidies (Source 4, U.S. EIA Annual Energy Outlook 2025 Electricity Assumptions) and that LCOE alone is not a sufficient decision metric (Source 3, U.S. EIA Annual Energy Outlook 2026 – Electricity Generation). Moreover, the Proponent cherry-picks consensus language from IEA/BNEF/WoodMac while omitting the same brief's integration-cost caveat—i.e., in high-penetration markets storage and grid upgrades can change the ranking—so the claim is not “unambiguously true” as stated (Source 12, BloombergNEF New Energy Outlook 2025; Source 7, IEA World Energy Outlook 2025).
Argument against
The motion overstates the case because even the EIA's own assumptions note that without subsidies natural gas combined-cycle “remains competitive in some areas,” meaning solar and wind are not reliably the cheapest new generation across a major market like the U.S. (Source 4, U.S. EIA Annual Energy Outlook 2025 Electricity Assumptions). Moreover, EIA emphasizes that LCOE alone is insufficient for judging competitiveness and points to value-cost (LACE-to-LCOE) and integration considerations (Source 3, U.S. EIA AEO 2026 Electricity Generation), aligning with BNEF's warning that in high-penetration markets storage and grid upgrades can change the cost ranking—undercutting the blanket claim that solar and wind are cheapest in “most major markets” (Source 12, BloombergNEF New Energy Outlook 2025).
The Opponent commits a fallacy of exception, seizing on Source 4's caveat that gas 'remains competitive in some areas' to refute a claim explicitly qualified as applying to 'most major markets' — a standard that Source 1 (IEA), Source 5 and Source 6 (Lazard), Source 12 (BloombergNEF), and Source 13 (Wood Mackenzie) all independently confirm is met. Furthermore, the Opponent conflates system-integration costs with the levelized cost of new generation, which is precisely the metric the motion addresses; even Source 12, which the Opponent cites, explicitly affirms that 'solar and wind are the cheapest new-build technologies in most regions globally,' directly validating rather than undermining the claim.