Fossil-fueled electricity generation plants (such as natural gas) operate at a far higher annual operating expense, subject to inflation variability.

• The largest component of price volatility is the cost of fuel conversion.  The price of output of a fossil-fueled plant is subject to far greater possible volatility, transferring price risk to consumers or forcing municipal retail suppliers to operate at a significant loss.

While initial capital costs of a renewable plant are somewhat higher than a fossil-fueled plant, operating expenses are lowered during the economic life of the project.  This means that for certain commercially available renewable technologies, the present value of a renewable plant project equals or exceeds that of a fossil-fueled plant.

Even without factoring the value of external economic environmental issues, renewable source projects can deliver competitively priced retail and wholesale electricity and provide an attractive yield to investors.