Text 1: Energy analyst Park argues that solar power has become the cheapest form of new electricity in most of the world. The cost of solar panels has fallen by more than ninety percent since 2010, and utility-scale solar farms now beat coal and gas on price in most markets, with no fuel costs once installed.
Text 2: Energy analyst Voss accepts that solar is now cheap to build but argues that "cheapest" depends on framing. Solar is intermittent; the full cost of a reliable solar grid includes batteries, backup generation, or transmission to combine output across regions. Without counting these system costs, Voss argues, comparisons to dispatchable sources are misleading.
The authors most clearly disagree about
- A
whether solar farms exist.
- B
whether solar panel prices have fallen.
- Ccheck_circle
whether the simple price of solar electricity captures its full system cost.
- D
whether coal is a fuel.
Explanation
Both accept the price decline; they differ on what "cost" should include. B captures the framing dispute. A, C, and D are points of agreement or irrelevant.