Clean power keeps its cost lead as the price floor creeps up

Lazard finds every kind of new generation getting pricier; renewables still lead, but their cost floor has stopped falling.

Lazard's 2026 Levelized Cost of Energy+ report finds the lifetime cost of new electricity rising across every kind of generation, renewables included. Even so, the firm says unsubsidized wind and solar remain the most cost-competitive way to build new capacity.

The numbers show the squeeze. Lazard puts utility-scale solar at $40 to $98 per MWh, onshore wind at $37 to $99, and offshore wind at $105 to $167. Fossil and nuclear sit higher: combined-cycle gas at $51 to $129, peaking gas at $144 to $276, and nuclear at $175 to $255. The firm blames higher capital costs, sustained interest rates, tariff pass-through, and supply-chain repricing, and notes the ranges for wind and solar widened as their high ends climbed faster than their low ends. Storage costs rose too, reversing last year's declines, as tariffs on lithium-ion imports cut access to cheap Chinese cells.

The drift toward near-free energy runs on costs that fall year after year, so a broad reversal is a genuine setback, even one where renewables keep their lead. Policy sharpens it: the One Big Beautiful Bill Act moved up the deadline for wind and solar to qualify for the 48E investment and 45Y production tax credits, pulling the subsidy cliff closer.

Read the figures as modeled estimates over a plant's lifetime, not invoices. And the cheapest cases carry conditions: Lazard's $16 low end for solar and $77 for offshore wind apply only with the production tax credit, the same credit whose window is now closing sooner.

Source: Utility Dive