My understanding was different; the leading reason for the drop in oil price is the switch in the US to shale (obv. for energy production).
Chinese cut back on growth being the second reason.
That’s not actually what I’m following from what you’re linking to, dumping means selling something for less than it costs [or selling something for less abroad than you do at home–a less widely accepted definition, though.] You appear to be conflating marginal break even price per unit with national budgets. Saudi Arabia can quite easily be selling oil at a profit (and likely is, given we know their break even point for production averages something in the neighborhood of $20/barrel, and we know they are not selling oil for that) but run a deficit as a country. While Saudi Arabia’s finances and that of Saudi Aramco (the national oil company of SA) are much more closely related than most countries (due to Aramco’s outsize influence over SA’s economy), they are not one and the same. Saudi Arabia is still a normal country that can set spending however it wants, including spending more than it takes in, which is what that article you’re talking about is saying. Saudi Arabia is choosing to spend at deficit as a government, but they aren’t selling oil at a loss.
Alternate energy sources are always going to have to compete with economic reality. I’m struggling right now with which energy companies to invest. One school of thought says oil doesn’t have much to do with alternate energy and the other (which is supported by stock price graphs) says it’s essentially all one energy pool.
WRT Saudi Arabia, their cost of production is very low, so they aren’t “dumping.” They’re just making a lower profit margin. “Dumping” is when China subsidizes solar panel manufacturing to corner the market and undercuts production elsewhere with prices that are artificially low.
My gut is that cheap oil is not good for the alternate energy cause, but you can find arguments on both sides of the fence. If you find some really good ones leaning one way or another, I’d love to hear them before I plunk down any more cash into stocks.
The U.S. oil industry will emerge from this price reduction healthier. Go back and read articles from 2008/2009 when gas prices collapsed and you will see a general agreement that the gas unconventional resource plays required $6 to $7 per mcf to be economic. Flash forward five years and now the dry gas Marcellus can make money at sub $2 with the overall market very profitable at $4.
Efficiency gains like pad drilling and increasing lateral lengths have improved the economics. The economics on oil wells have gone down as well. Improvements to infrastructure have also helped lower pricing deducts in areas like West Texas and North Dakota that have helped as well; this continues to improve.
What we will see is that the disciplined good management teams will make it through this fine and the poor ones will not. Their will be some asset consolidation and the overall industry will come out of it fine.
The service companies will, like always, suffer the most. Drilling contractors are really struggling right now.
And they got tariffs imposed on them, (something that I mentioned is done when dumping and I granted already the point of SA not really dumping; but related to your item, even with the tariffs, the solar panels are still getting cheaper.
Gut feelings are not as good when more experienced people are reporting something else. Here is some information from the Environmental Defense Fund:
Of course this ignores the fact that natural gas prices have also fallen considerably and natural gas is a direct competitor to renewables.
Well, if you are happy with that analysis, why did you say earlier that you were concerned about the effect of cheap oil on renewables?
From this investor’s perspective, the issue is whether falling oil prices hurt renewable energy stocks, and not whether or not they should, or whether or not they affect demand.
Here is the kind of chart that concerns me.
OTOH, maybe this is a good buying opportunity for renewables…
What’s your gut? 
Read it again, the main reason is to make oil cheaper than renewables were becoming.
And the point stands, what SA is doing is an attempt to keep fossil fuels as the main energy source, it looks more desperate to me as in reality what it underscores is the volatility of the fossil fuel market.
What the experts on the cite you made are telling us in the graph itself:
“Experts said that solar and oil aren’t substitutes.”
Not really, from the environmental point of view even the EDF reports that Natural Gas can (some effort is needed to control leaks at the source) and is many times better than other fossil fuel options regarding emissions.
No, I mean the argument is that falling oil prices shouldn’t hurt renewables since they are used for different purposes (transportation versus power generation). Gas prices have also fallen and that is used for power generation; therefore a direct competitor to renewables. Has nothing to do with environmentalism or relative cleanliness of fuels.