Cost parity with fossil fuels has long been the holy grail of the renewable energy industry. When shale exploration in the United States began producing abundant natural gas, prices began falling and didn’t pull the rip cord before hitting ten-year lows.
What impact is that having on the renewable energy sector’s ability to attract essential capital investment? I asked Cascadia Capital CEO Michael Butler for his outlook from an investment banker’s perspective. Our Q&A appears in Renewable Energy World magazine:
Brian Dumane, in next week’s issue of Fortune, has a similar Q&A with Daniel Yergin, author of The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World. Yergin’s outlook for renewables is a little more optimistic, but he downplays the importance of wind and solar in the energy mix. He says, globally, renewables will continue to grow apace this decade because utilities will diversify. “Gas has a new role as a partner of renewables.” He anticipates gas price increases.
“Will gas crowd out wind and solar?”
Energy Priorities 