Solar is booming- accelerating ahead exponentially, with well over 1.8TW already now installed globally. According to Carbon Brief/IEA it’s set to overtake coal in power generation by 2030, taking over the lead from wind. That’s mainly since PV cells are getting cheaper, rapidly so, and are relatively easy to install in solar farms and also, to a lesser degree, on roof tops, although that’s usually a bit more expensive. Averaged levelised costs have been put by IRENA at around $0.043/kWh - see chart below.
There are land use and impact issues, but also agrisolar options for limiting them. In addition, floating units are also being developed for use on reservoirs, so avoiding land use and reducing fresh water evaporation. The cooling effect also improves the efficiency of PV cells in warm climates.
Meanwhile, wind also continues to boom, and is set to double up, adding its second TW capacity by 2030. That’s mainly driven by onshore wind, with (see chart) its average LCOE put at around $0.034/kWh, but, although its more expensive ($0.079/kWh), offshore is now building up too. Although rising material and energy costs have recently had an impact on offshore wind economics, solar and wind, together with other renewables, look like overtaking coal in capacity terms by 2026, aided by the rapid expansion of energy storage - a key to grid balancing and renewable integration. It has got significantly cheaper. IRENA says that last year ‘the cost of utility-scale battery storage fell to $192/kWh a 93% decline since 2010 – driven by manufacturing scale-up- improved materials and production efficiencies’.
As the chart shows, it not just wind and solar that had got cheaper: costs for most renewables have fallen over the last decade. Although, some are still less developed and more expensive at present, progress is being made, and most seem to be converging on relatively low costs. For example, geothermal power is put by IRENA at $0.06/kWh) and it has major potential for power and/or heat in some locations. Meanwhile tidal energy is looking promising in some locations, tidal stream systems especially, while wave power is also being talked up. Hydro is, of course, already a big thing, with relatively low costs ($0.057/kWh) once built, but there are big local eco-issues which some say may (or should) limit its expansion, pumped storage for balancing apart.
Leaving that issue aside, the future for most renewables looks good, led by solar and wind, some of the rests hopefully following on. IRENA says ‘over the next five years, global total installed costs are expected to reach approximately $388/kW for solar PV, $861/kW for onshore wind, and $2316/kW for offshore wind. Between 2024 & 2029, the Total Installed Cost (TIC) of solar PV is expected to fall below $400/kW in Europe and Asia, while remaining higher than $600/kW in the rest of the world. Onshore wind costs are projected to decline at a slower pace, with most regions converging toward the $1,100/kW to $1,300/kW range by 2029, except for Asia. There, TIC values between $750/kW & $850/kW are foreseen. Offshore wind will see more modest reductions, particularly in Europe, where costs are expected to get close to $3,000/kW by 2029’. However, that may change with floating offshore wind allowing access to windier sites far away from shore maybe playing an increasing role longer term. It’s still expensive, but it’s likely to develop: it’s just passed 1TWh globally.
However, it’s not all good news. The use of the solar energy captured in biomass as an energy source has had mixed success - but it’s complicated. At first sight, plant-based biomass would seem to be a fundamentally green energy source, but burning it inevitably creates carbon dioxide gas and not all of that can necessarily be captured by regrowth. It’s also very land-intensive. Bio photo-syntheses is much less efficient than photo-voltaic energy conversion, so it needs much larger areas than PV (and also more than wind farms) to generate as much energy- though biomass/biogas is storable, which is a plus. Also biomass wastes are produced anyway & do not need extra land, so that’s a positive option and a relatively low cost one. But most of the other bio fuel-options have eco- and land-use issues, which may, or at least should, constrain their growth. And overall bio-energy costs have risen on late- see the chart.
There are those who see biomass energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) as a viable carbon negative option, but biomass growing on any significant scale would have land use implications. And there are also now doubts emerging about the viability of global carbon storage - the potential of geological storage may have been overstated, with there being limited hazard and impact free sites. There are also concerns about how some other types of carbon removal is being done. And overall there are some big uncertainties about low carbon futures using Carbon Capture and Storage as way to allow for the continued use of fossil fuel.
What about nuclear- the other main rival to renewables? Well views differ. Not many see it expanding rapidly, most see it as stalled, or at best slowly expanding in a few countries, despite the high costs. Others say that, if renewables progress as hoped, we won’t need it. If energy demand can also be tamed, then that looks even more the case. Although that may arguably may be harder if demand is pushed up by AI. But Amory Lovins argues that renewables are still the better bet, with, as I noted in my last post, BNEF claiming that renewables (including storage) are already much cheaper, in Levelised Cost terms, than nuclear.
However, the nuclear debate seems to run on for ever- some seem prepared to back nuclear even if it has high costs and despite the fact uranium represents a limited, unsustainable resource. The UK is an obvious example – its commitment to costly and resource constrained nuclear may seem odd given its huge renewable resource. But see my next post for another trip around the loop- some say renewables are not all they are cracked up to be.
Comments
Post a Comment