Greentech Media reported January 8 that a recent Xcel Energy solicitation set a new record for solar power plus storage, with a median price of $36 per megawatt-hour.
The bids for wind-plus-storage were even lower, with a median price of $21 per megawatt-hour. The Xcel figures are also well below the unsubsidized levelized cost of energy (LCOE) for wind and solar published by Lazard last November.
Xcel did not provide details of each proposal but published the median levelized price of the bids received for each generation type. It defined median as “the midpoint of the pricing such that 50 percent of the bids are lower priced and 50 percent are higher priced.”
Wind came in lowest, at $18.10 per megawatt-hour. It was followed by combined wind and solar, at $19.90; then wind with battery storage, at $21; PV alone, at $29.50; then wind, solar and battery storage, at $30.60.