MIT Finds No Link Between Utility-Scale Renewables and Higher Power Prices

An MIT study published on October 13, 2026 found no correlation between renewable portfolio standards (RPS) or utility-scale wind and solar generation and higher residential electricity prices in the United States. Researchers Fischer J. Espiritu Argosino and Christopher R. Knittel, of MIT's Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research (CEEPR), built a state-utility panel from 1998 to 2023 using data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL).

According to pv magazine's coverage and the CEEPR working paper itself, RPS have a virtually nil impact on rates, while utility-scale solar is associated with lower prices. For every 10 percentage point increase in utility-scale solar's share of generation, residential prices fall by just over 8%. By contrast, a 5 point rise in rooftop solar is associated with prices roughly 16% higher.

The authors attribute that second result to rate design: in some states, fee structures shift the fixed costs of distributed solar onto other users. They also note that the distribution grid was not designed for bidirectional flows, which drives up operation and maintenance costs. The researchers themselves caution that these are correlations and that they will apply additional econometric techniques. Earlier LBNL research led by Ryan Wiser reached a similar conclusion on utility-scale generation.

For Mexico, where utility-scale solar accounts for a growing share of the SEN generation fleet and distributed generation is advancing under net-metering rules, the finding feeds the technical debate over how fixed and grid costs are shared among users. CEEPR published the paper as a research work without prior peer review, and the team anticipates stricter econometric models to reinforce the causal interpretation of its estimates.

This article was drafted with the assistance of artificial intelligence from verified sources and reviewed by a human editor before publication.