Solar Power Is Now the Cheapest Electricity in Human History
By Sanna the Weaver • Tue Jan 27 2026 • Science
The price of utility-scale solar power has fallen by more than 90% since 2010. In 2026, solar projects in sun-rich locations — the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia, parts of Africa and Latin America — are regularly being contracted at prices of
0 to 5 per megawatt-hour. To put this in context: coal-fired electricity in the US costs approximately $65 to 50 per megawatt-hour to generate; natural gas combined-cycle plants run $35 to $60 per megawatt-hour. In the best solar locations, solar is not just competitive with fossil fuels — it is between two and ten times cheaper. The International Energy Agency has declared solar "the cheapest source of electricity in history." The Technology Trajectory The cost decline follows a learning curve that has proven remarkably consistent for forty years: for every doubling of cumulative installed solar capacity, the price of solar panels falls by approximately 20 to 25%. Global installed solar capacity has doubled roughly every three years, and the learning curve has held. New panel technologies — including perovskite-silicon tandem cells now entering commercial production — promise to push panel efficiencies above 30% (compared to 20 to 22% for mainstream silicon panels today), potentially extending the cost decline for another cycle. The constraint on further cost reduction is shifting from the panels themselves to balance-of-system costs: land, mounting structures, inverters, grid connection, and permitting. Storage Is the Next Frontier The fundamental limitation of solar power is that it only generates electricity when the sun shines. Integrating solar at scale requires either storage (batteries, pumped hydro, hydrogen) or a grid flexible enough to balance supply and demand across large distances. Battery storage costs have followed a similar learning curve to solar — falling by more than 80% since 2015 — and co-located solar-plus-storage projects are now routinely competitive with gas peaker plants for providing power in the late afternoon and evening demand peaks. In California, Arizona, and Texas, solar-plus-storage has become the default choice for new generation procurement. But seasonal storage — getting summer solar to winter demand — remains an unsolved challenge at scale. "We used to argue about whether renewables could compete on cost. That argument is over. The argument now is about the grid, the storage, the supply chain, and the politics." — Rocky Mountain Institute, March 2026 The Energy Access Dimension Beyond the decarbonization story, ultra-cheap solar has profound implications for energy access in the developing world. Approximately 600 million people in sub-Saharan Africa still lack access to electricity. Distributed solar — rooftop panels paired with small batteries — can deliver reliable electricity to off-grid communities at costs that grid extension cannot match. Mobile payment platforms and innovative financing models (pay-as-you-go solar, pioneered by companies like M-KOPA and BBOXX) have enabled millions of low-income households to access solar without up-front capital. The combination of falling panel prices and expanding mobile money infrastructure is changing the energy access picture in Africa faster than any development program in history.