Steyer-Taylor Center Director Dan Reicher weighs in on the rapidly dropping costs of renewable energy sources for The New York Times.

Renewable energy was never a bargain compared with fossil fuels like natural gas and coal. Steep price declines in those commodities, especially lately, make it even tougher for alternatives like solar, wind and hydroelectric power to compete.

Natural gas costs about $2.60 per thousand cubic feet, barely half as much as a year ago and over 80 percent less than its 2005 peak. Coal prices have fallen too, although less sharply. Even so, technological improvements and a persistent push from regulators for utilities to use cleaner fuel sources are keeping supply and demand for renewables high and reducing cost disadvantages over the long haul.

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Other breakthroughs, like new storage methods, are making renewable energy more user-friendly, said Dan Reicher, director of the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance at Stanford University. “If you’re running the grid, you’re much more interested in a kilowatt-hour of intermittent solar or wind power if you know it can be managed,” he said. “The sun shines in the day but power is used at night; that’s where storage comes in.”

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