Climate Changed

Gas Plants Will Get Crushed by Wind, Solar by 2035, Study Says

  • Generators now on drawing boards will be left uneconomical
  • Development would be a dramatic reversal of fortune for gas

Photographer: Pablo Blazquez Dominguez/Getty Images 

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Natural gas-fired power plants, which have crushed the economics of coal, are on the path to being undercut themselves by renewable power and big batteries, a study found.

By 2035, it will be more expensive to run 90% of gas plants being proposed in the U.S. than it will be to build new wind and solar farms equipped with storage systems, according to the report Monday from the Rocky Mountain Institute. It will happen so quickly that gas plants now on the drawing boards will become uneconomical before their owners finish paying for them, the study said.