With respect to cost, as I mentioned for utility scale solar, we've seen price declines since 2009 of about 85%. It's very hard to keep track of how quickly these costs are coming down. It's the same for laptop computers or smart phones, it's just been driven down further and further.
The advantage of solar electricity generation is that all of the capital costs are incurred up front, so the cost of electricity generation has close to a zero marginal cost and you know exactly what your cost is going to be for 20 or 30 years. In many cases, you're not subject to inflation risks. You have no exposure to what can be at times volatile energy markets. Also, since it's not emitting, you have no exposure to carbon risks either.
We're still seeing something of a delta between new solar generation and other forms today, but when you take a life cycle approach then in many cases, solar is less expensive than other forms of new generation in Canada today. In years to come, we'll see solar potentially reaching lower costs than existing assets as well. I draw attention to Mr. Martel's comment from Hydro-Québec that they expect solar to be cost-competitive with existing hydro assets by 2024. In electricity generation asset lifetimes, that's a very short period of time.
I took quite a long time with your first question, so I'll be quick with my second one. Photovoltaics have been the dominant electricity source. The application that you mentioned with molten salts uses a variety of different forms of mirrors to concentrate solar energy. Typically, to date at least, those technologies have been most suitable for jurisdictions that have a direct normal radiance of more than five kilowatt hours per metre squared per day. In Medicine Hat, there is the only example of a similar kind of technology. We're at very early stages. I think that there's probably limited applications for things like that in the immediate near term. In the future, it may be possible, but I think for the time being that photovoltaics will be the dominant technology.