The Learning Curve of Clean Power: Driving Down Costs and Propeling Canada Forward

by Dan Roscoe, CEO of Roswall

A decade ago, renewables were considered a premium option. Cleaner, but costlier. Today, they’ve become the cheapest source of new electricity on Earth.

In 2024, 91% of new renewable capacity worldwide produced power at a lower cost than the cheapest fossil fuel alternative. Onshore wind averaged US $0.034/kWh and solar PV US $0.043/kWh, both more than 40–50% below fossil fuels.

That shift is the result of a steep and predictable learning curve, the idea that the more we build, the cheaper and better we get. Every new wind farm, solar array, and storage project lowers the cost of the next one through scale, innovation, and investor confidence.

For Canada, harnessing this dynamic is the difference between following and leading in the global energy transition.

The Learning Curve Effect

Economists call it the “learning rate”: every time global installed capacity doubles, costs typically fall 20–25% for solar and 15–20% for wind. The physics behind it are simple: renewable energy is a manufactured technology, not a mined commodity. That distinction is important. Renewables improve through repetition, efficiency, and design refinement. Extractive industries do not. Fossil fuels get harder to extract over time, becoming harder to find and more expensive to access.

The effect is dramatic. Battery prices have dropped 93% since 2010, transforming storage from a luxury add-on to a standard feature of modern grids. Manufacturing improvements, smarter logistics, and better forecasting tools keep pushing costs lower. Clean power becomes cheaper by being built, not burned.

This dynamic underpins the success of every major technology shift in history, from microchips to mobile phones.

Clean energy is following the same curve.

Scale as the Engine of Affordability

Scale is what accelerates the curve. In 2024, the world added a record 582 GW of renewable capacity, up 20% year-over-year. Each new gigawatt drives manufacturing scale, workforce specialization, and supply-chain maturity.

Across the globe, those effects reinforce each other. China’s solar industry has reached extraordinary manufacturing scale, albeit with levels of state support that make true market competitiveness difficult to measure. Europe’s offshore wind build-out has standardized components and logistics. North America’s storage boom has streamlined installation and grid integration.

For Canada, scaling our domestic renewable sector will replicate those savings while positioning us for export leadership. The Atlantic provinces alone hold some of the best potential for onshore and offshore wind in North America. Canada’s renewable future will most likely be built project by project, but guided by systems thinking connecting generation, storage, and transmission into a coordinated network that drives down costs and builds export potential.

Every project makes the next one faster, cheaper, and easier to build.

The clean-energy revolution is increasingly a digital one

Much of the story to date has been improvements in hardware design and engineering: taller turbines reach stronger winds, bifacial solar panels capture light on both sides, floating foundations open up deep-water sites. But the biggest cost reductions now come from software, data, and finance.

AI-driven forecasting and digital twins help operators predict output, schedule maintenance, and balance supply in real time. Demand-response programs reward users for consuming energy when it’s cheapest. And financial innovations, from green bonds to power purchase agreements, attract long-term private capital, lowering the cost of borrowing for developers.

The result is an ecosystem that learns from itself. Each project produces more data, which fuels better design, lowering cost again.

Market Confidence and Policy Alignment

As costs fall, confidence grows. And with confidence comes capital. Investors now see renewables as one of the safest long-term infrastructure assets in the world, outperforming oil and gas in both stability and return.

While political winds have largely turned against it, the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act showed how clear, consistent policy can supercharge private investment. Canada has strong tax incentives and provincial programs, but they remain fragmented. To capture global capital, we need policy coherence and stability: predictable frameworks that treat clean energy as core infrastructure, not a side program.

The Trend Is Still Accelerating

Even after years of record growth, the renewable learning curve hasn’t flattened. Manufacturing costs are still falling. Storage breakthroughs are making renewables dispatchable. AI-enabled grid management is unlocking higher penetration levels without sacrificing reliability.

According to IRENA, renewable growth in 2024 alone saved the global economy US $467 billion in fossil-fuel costs. Clean energy now saves money first and cuts emissions second.

For Canada, this is a generational opportunity. Our wind, hydro, and tidal potential are immense; our engineering and manufacturing base is proven. We can anchor this global cost advantage at home and export it abroad. The economics of renewables are self-reinforcing: the more we build, the cheaper they get, and the faster we can scale.

The clean-energy learning curve is a blueprint for national leadership. It shows that affordability, innovation, and climate progress are the outcome of building smarter and faster.

Renewables are now the most reliable path to energy security, economic resilience, and climate credibility. Canada has the resources and the workforce to lead, but leadership demands commitment, to scale, to innovation, and to the confidence that clean power is our nation’s competitive advantage.

Every renewable project we build strengthens the next.

Every dollar we invest accelerates affordability for all.

This is the path to how Canada becomes a true clean-energy superpower.

—

Dan Roscoe is the CEO of Roswall Development, a renewable energy developer, and President of Renewall Energy, a renewable energy provider, both based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. His work is focused on building the infrastructure for a cleaner, smarter energy future across Canada and beyond.