I think one contributing factor slowing down progress is the cost of electricity in Italy. It's €0.24/kwh vs $0.06/kwh in the US (at least in PA). You dont see any electric cars in Italy, and it seems super expensive to them. I’m also not sure if there is a tax on top of that €0.24 from what I remember my cousin telling me. I’m hitting a language barrier confirming this.
My dad pays $0.08 / kWh for electricity in Kentucky. San Francisco has very expensive electricity compared to much of the country. The average US electric rate is $0.12 / kWh for reference.
Kentucky is 75% coal powered, mostly using old existing coal plants.
As those plants age out of their usable lifetime, Kentucky utilities will have to choose between some combination of renewables and storage or natural gas or nuclear, all of which have higher costs than operating the defunct coal plants, but lower capital costs than building new coal plants. This will result in a rise in their prices over time.
Of course, comparing the future costs of new non-coal plants doesn't account for the huge existing public health and environmental costs of burning coal for electricity, which would be avoided by any of the other technologies.
Kentucky has been transitioning to natgas for some time now. The TVA shut down three big coal plants and another big utility also shut down a big coal plant last year. They’re not building new coal plants but natgas plants. That’s not going to change the economics much.
I’m hoping Kentucky starts to do more solar as it is pretty decent for sun, but the local politics likely think solar + stationary battery storage is some lib-ruhl conspiracy.
