Renewables - 24/7

The plunging cost of large-scale battery storage is a potentially

game-changing development for the electricity sector — one that is just
starting to get the attention it merits. Could this usher in a new wave of
24-hour solar and wind power? The trouble with solar and wind power plants,
as everyone knows, is that they don’t provide electricity when the sun
doesn’t shine or the wind’s not blowing. No longer, argues Francesco La
Camera, director-general of the International Renewable Energy Agency
(Irena). “This question of intermittency has been played against
renewables for a long time, by lobbyists that are looking for the eternal
life of an energy system based on fossil fuels,” he told me yesterday at
the FT-Kathimerini Energy Transition Summit in Athens. Our conversation
came soon after Irena published a report hailing the arrival of “24/7
renewables”. The study portrayed as obsolete the conventional wisdom
which holds that, despite the emergence of solar and wind power as the
cheapest form of energy, you’ll always need more reliable “baseload”
sources such as gas or nuclear plants as the core of your electricity
system.

 FT 15th May 2026 

 https://www.ft.com/content/b5c53f48-0f8c-4ef8-9152-53feffe60461

 New IRENA report confirms the cost-competitiveness of round-the-clock
renewable power through hybrid solutions of solar and wind with battery
storage. Solar and wind energy paired with battery storage are reliable and
already today deliver cost-effective, round-the-clock electricity,
according to a new report by the International Renewable Energy Agency
(IRENA). 24/7 renewables: The economics of firm solar and wind confirms
that in prime solar and wind regions, hybrid solutions combined with
storage deliver round-the-clock power at lower costs than fossil fuels.
Firm levelised costs of electricity (‘firm costs’) for solar plus
storage range from USD 54 to USD 82 per megawatt-hour (MWh) in high-quality
resource regions, compared with USD 70–85 per MWh for new coal in China
and more than USD 100 per MWh for new gas globally.

 IRENA 6th May 2026 

 https://www.irena.org/News/pressreleases/2026/May/24-7-Renewables-Outcompete-Fossil-Fuels-on-Firm-Costs