Power prices for electricity generated from wind and solar technology have dramatically decreased over the past 5 years to the point where wind and solar are cheaper than gas or coal in parts of the US. In some places it also appears renewable energy sources can beat fossil fuels on price without subsidies, although renewable energy companies are not yet ready to cut the subsidy cord. “Mr. Mir noted there were hidden costs that needed to be taken into account for both renewable energy and fossil fuels. Solar and wind farms, for example, produce power intermittently — when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing — and that requires utilities to have power available on call from other sources that can respond to fluctuations in demand. Alternately, conventional power sources produce pollution, like carbon emissions, which face increasing restrictions and costs. But in a straight comparison of the costs of generating power, Mr. Mir said that the amount solar and wind developers needed to earn from each kilowatt-hour they sell from new projects was often ‘essentially competitive with what would otherwise be had from newly constructed conventional generation.’” [New York Times]

All eyes are on this week’s Opec meeting that happens to fall on the Thanksgiving holiday. With the global oil market reportedly oversupplied by roughly 2 million barrels per day, Opec members will need help in cutting output from non-Opec suppliers. “OPEC can’t balance the market alone,” Al Attiyah, who participated in the group’s policy meetings from 1992 to 2011, said in a Nov. 19 phone interview. “This time, Russia, Norway and Mexico must all come to the table. OPEC can make a cut, but what will happen is that non-OPEC supply will continue to grow. Then what will the market do?” [Bloomberg]

The US could soon get its first commercial-scale offshore wind power development following a major lease sale offshore Massachusetts. “This will be our largest competitive lease sale to date for offshore wind energy development,” Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said in a Monday statement, thanking officials from Massachusetts and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which is part of Interior. “This sale will triple the amount of federal offshore acreage available for commercial-scale wind energy projects, bringing Massachusetts to the forefront of our nation’s new energy frontier,” she said. [The Hill]