A report published last week by Bloomberg New Energy Finance showed that new ultra-supercritical coal would be the most expensive form of new energy supply in Australia, well above the Levelised Cost of Energy for other sources such as wind, solar, and natural gas.
Nearly 10 months ago, Tony Seba, author of the 2014 book Clean Disruption of Energy and Transportation, posted a video on YouTube, “CleanDisruption.” In both, he projected that a nearly complete disruption of the energy business would begin in 2020 and be well underway by 2022, the year he projects for distributed solar power with battery backup to fall below the cost of transmitting electricity. It is a point at which centralized power plants, if they are to compete with solar-plus-storage, will have to provide power for free. He believes that all centralized electric power producers will be obsolete by 2030, as will conventional cars and utility companies.
We’ve seen a lot of commentary on the fact that utility-scale solar power has become the least expensive source of electricity in many places. There is more than that to be found in the data in Lazard’s Levelized Cost of Energy Analysis, Version 10.0, however, and what it tells us is that solar and wind power have benefits apart from the simple facts that their costs are low.
These are 5 messages that I think anyone wanting a better US economy (or a better economy in practically any country), anyone wanting national energy freedom (aka energy independence), anyone wanting to advance the most cost-effective choices for electricity generation, and anyone wanting to make logical energy decisions should know and share with others.
Originally published on Nexus Media. By Jeremy Deaton Renewables are cheaper than coal and gas across much of the United States. For the second year in a row, wind and solar accounted for roughly two-thirds of new U.S. generating capacity, while natural gas and nuclear made up most of the rest. That’s … [continued]
gasoline is still more expensive than electricity for transportation, but is electricity produced from coal and natural gas cheaper than that from renewables? Price of fossil fuels (oil (2) and natural gas(3)) in the U.S. are at 14 year lows. The amount of electricity generated using coal in the U.S. is at its lowest level since 1970 (4) and last year, natural
gas surpassed coal as the top U.S. fuel used to produce electricity.
The levelized cost of renewable electricity in the United Kingdom has continued to fall, and recent figures published by the UK Government show that they are lower than ever.
The offshore wind industry has seen its global levelised costs of electricity plummet 22% due to competitive bidding, reaching a benchmark estimate of $126/MWh during the second half of this year, according to new figures from Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
A new report by researchers from Berkeley Lab has raised the possibility that we are underestimating the potential for and uncertainty of wind energy cost reductions.
A new study from KIC InnoEnergy has concluded that wind farm technology innovations could see the levelized cost of electricity for European offshore wind drop by 33% by 2030. According to a new, updated report from technical consultancy BVG Associates and European sustainable energy accelerator KIC InnoEnergy, there exist a … [continued]
