Falling renewable costs 'chilling' for fossil fuels   

Canberra Times
March 30 2018 - 10:40PM

The rapidly falling cost of renewable energy and batteries is "chilling" for the future of the fossil fuels sector, raising doubts about the viability of new coal power stations.

A Bloomberg New Energy Finance report has found the price of renewables has fallen by almost a fifth over the last year, with wind and solar generators becoming cheaper than both coal and gas-fired power stations.

Elena Giannakopoulou, head of energy economics at BNEF, said the rapidly falling cost of renewable generation and battery power is changing the game for the electricity sector.

"The conclusions are chilling for the fossil fuel sector," she said.

The cost of electricity supplied by lithium-ion batteries, like the Tesla installation in South Australia, has fallen nearly 80 per cent, from $US1000 ($1308) a kilowatt hour in 2010 to only $US209 a kilowatt hour in 2017.

Wind and solar are proving cheaper because their cost of electricity has fallen significantly, while that for coal, gas, nuclear and large hydro projects has only slightly decreased.

"We are seeing record-low prices being set for wind and solar, and then those records being broken again and again on a regular basis. This is having a powerful effect – it is changing perceptions," BNEF head of Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Seb Henbest, said

BNEF said Australia had one of the world's lowest levelised cost of electricity for onshore wind and solar.

The Australian National University forecast future prices of new renewable energy generators would fall to $50 a megawatt hour in the 2020s.

The ASX forward prices for NSW between the 2020 March quarter and 2021 December quarter run to an average of $75.73 a megawatt hour for coal-fired power.

Globally, the levelised cost of electricity for wind farms was $US55 per megawatt hour for the first half of 2018, down 18 per cent from the same time last year, while solar power has also fallen 18 per cent to $US70 per megawatt hour. Only offshore wind generation failed to fall significantly, dipping 5 per cent in costs year on year

EY believes Australian renewable energy will cost the same or be cheaper than fossil fuels as soon as 2020.

This parity is forecast to happen as the Renewable Energy Target - a government scheme designed to support building renewable generation like wind and solar - comes to an end.

However, Ms Giannakopoulou said despite the rapidly falling costs of renewables it does not spell the end for fossil fuels.

"Some existing coal and gas power stations, with sunk capital costs, will continue to have a role for many years, doing a combination of bulk generation and balancing, as wind and solar penetration increase," she said.

"But the economic case for building new coal and gas capacity is crumbling, as batteries start to encroach on the flexibility and peaking revenues enjoyed by fossil fuel plants."

Australia has been putting wind and solar through its paces to see if it can provide both more stable, instantly available energy to the grid, overcoming the issues of how to generate electricity when the wind isn't blowing and the sun doesn't shine.

The government recently announced new trials to improve the accuracy of the renewable systems’ self-forecasting ability, which allows them to predict the weather in their immediate area and know how much electricity they can provide into the grid, ensuring there is no sudden shortfall when the weather changes.

There are also trials to use wind farm-generated electricity to provide power that smooths out demand and supply to make sure it is balanced.

Neoen Australia’s South Australian Hornsdale 2 wind farm also carried out trials providing intermittent energy into electricity markets under a wide range of operating conditions, saving the market about $3.1 million due to the lower cost of energy

whiteknight wrote on Mar 31^st, 2018 at 7:05am:



Now if only the could generate power when needed.

And then of course build them so they use a smaller footprint.

"This study examines power plant performance at elevated demand requirements during the explosive cyclogenesis cold weather event, now known as the “Bomb Cyclone (BC),  ” the winter storm that highlighted a period of deep freeze blanketing much of the eastern half of the United States from December 27, 2017, through January 8, 2018.
Fossil fuels, particularly coal, responded to the system’s needs during this event (Exhibit ES-1 )

https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/ne-power-graph.png

https://www.netl.doe.gov/energy-analyses/temp/Power%20System%20Reliability_Repor...

page 11 of the pdf.

Cost is merely one parameter.

whiteknight wrote on Mar 31^st, 2018 at 7:05am:



So that SA Tesla battery cost $100 million, and it provide one single hour of electricity to on 30 000 household at the cost stated above.


Multiply $100 million by at least 12 and you get a night's worth of power. = $1.2 billion

Now there are 9 million households in Australia, so multiple $1.2 bill by 300. = 360 billion dollars

Or about one third of Australia's GDP


And that does not include industry or commercial needs.


Nor does it include the hundreds of billions of dollars needed to build the massive solar farms need to run and charge everything.


I doubt anyone in the real world is too worried about how 'cheap' renewables are.



In the words of the great Daryl Kerrigan, "Tell them they're dreamin". 

Quote:


https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610366/relying-on-renewables-alone-would-sign...

Prime Minister for Canyons wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2018 at 2:23pm:

Nope. But you can make your own mind up about its problems.

There needs to be a mix. And if you can't have coal and you can't have nuclear; you can't have reliable power.

Bobby. wrote on Mar 31^st, 2018 at 9:10am:


Unfortunately the falling  resources market will not help the environment. All this means is we can expect more power stations in India  Brazil, Pakistan and the countries of west Africa.

lee wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2018 at 3:09pm:


Isnt there something about salt? Also, increases in solar cell efficiency are possible.

lee wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2018 at 3:09pm:

lee wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2018 at 2:28pm:

No one said you can't have coal or nuclear!

lee wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2018 at 3:49pm:

Your point being?

TheFunPolice wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2018 at 3:53pm:


The Solar salt concept doesn't seem to be delivering on its promises.

Of course if you have a different view; you could expand on your concept.

"SolarReserve’s flagship project is Crescent Dunes, a US$1 billion, 110MW first-of-its-kind project located, perhaps appropriately, near Las Vegas. Ground was broken in 2011 on the project.

The project has 10 hours molten salt storage but the relevant statistic is its design capacity factor of 51 per cent.
Not enough evidence that Crescent Dunes works

Production from the facility was first reported in October, 2015, and out of 26 months since then the facility has been completely offline for 9 months. On only 3 months has it met the annualized design goal.

Figure 1 Crescent Dunes operating history. Source EIA, Wikipedia

SolarReserve management stated that the reason the facility was closed down for 8 consecutive months in 2016/2017 was a leak in the molten salt tank.

Leaving aside any questions of how that could happen, or why it should take 8 months to repair, we note that having started up again in July 2017 the facility did not reach design goal and as of November 2017, on the last data available, it appears to have virtually shut again.

It did not meet its design goal in any month after being restarted.

Leaving aside any questions of project economics we would simply say there is not enough positive evidence to suggest the technology works to the extent advertised."

http://reneweconomy.com.au/solarreserve-still-falling-short-at-flagship-solar-to...

lee wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2018 at 5:04pm:

RenewEconomy is an independent website founded and owned by Giles Parkinson, a journalist of 30 years experience, a former Business Editor and Deputy Editor of the Australian Financial Review, a former columnist for The Bulletin magazine and The Australian, and the founder and former editor of Climate Spectator.

Giles is joined by Deputy Editor Sophie Vorrath and other contributors. These include David Leitch, an independent energy analyst with decades of experience in the energy markets with a high profile investment bank.

<<

Doesn't even mention the effects of government intervention!

What kind of independant analyst does he think he is!!

DonDeeHippy wrote on Apr 8^th, 2018 at 8:16am:



Nuclear? No the greenies don't like it.

Hydro? No the greenies don't like the drowned earth for the dams.

DonDeeHippy wrote on Apr 8^th, 2018 at 8:16am:



Why? Do you think the CO2 will kill you?

BigOl64 wrote on Apr 8^th, 2018 at 12:26pm:


Well if because I think we need to address pollution makes me a extreme socialist greeny, I guess I'm guilty

Instead of personal attacks and talking about the cost of completely changing a system, maybe u could suggest positive actions we could take to stop polluting our country.

reneweconomy.com.au/tesla-big-battery-is-already-bringing-australias-gas-cartel-
to-heel-39541/

The big gas generators – even though they have 10 times more capacity than is required – have systematically rorted the situation, sometimes charging up to $7 million a day for a service that normally comes at one-tenth of the price.
(You can read our reports on how they do it here, here and here, and for a more detailed explanation at the bottom of this story).
The difference in January was that there is a new player in the market: the Tesla big battery, officially known as the Hornsdale Power Reserve, which bid into the market to ensure that prices stayed reasonable, as we predicted last year.
Rather than jumping up to prices of around $11,500 and $14,000/MW, the bidding of the Tesla big battery – and, in a major new development, the adjoining Hornsdale wind farm – helped (after an initial spike) to keep them at around $270/MW.
This saved several million dollars in FCAS charges (which are paid by other generators and big energy users) in a single day.
And that’s not the only impact. According to state government’s advisor, Frontier Economics, the average price of FCAS fell by around 75 per cent in December from the same month the previous year. Market players are delighted, and consumers should be too, because they will ultimately benefit.

ouch the old 30000 ppl for 1 hour seams silly when that's not how it works, 7million saved in one day for a 110 million investment seams pretty good to me.
When it works as a peaker plant its so fast at keeping power stable that the monitors r not able to register when its working because a gas fired one still takes minutes instead of micro seconds to respond.
I see your frustrations and I sympathise.

DonDeeHippy wrote on Apr 8^th, 2018 at 2:18pm:



What about when the power is NOT available for more than 1 hour? Do you think the punter will feel dudded?

DonDeeHippy wrote on Apr 8^th, 2018 at 8:21pm:



Well the punters want a reliable supply. A backup  for one hour when the power is out for 3 or 4 hours, isn't going to make them happy. And that is only if you can limit supply to those 30000 homes.

You're only talking about dollar value not emotional value.

I think you guys have got it wrong.

A battery supply is very handy to give an uninterupted changeover
when say a power staion goes down briefly or
if a boiler is fired up -
it takes time to do such things and the battery
can give that time.

Any day now, any day there will be a breakthrough in battery technology.

Maybe nano batteries?

I just think of all those mining camps , outback towns, Aboriginal remote communities burning shirt loads of diesel.

It will be great when they can use the sun with decent battery backup storage.

BigOl64 wrote on Apr 8^th, 2018 at 8:56pm:


Ok I cant post links yet
Sydney morning herald and the arrival I quoted

History in the making': Tesla switches on world's largest battery in SA

If they where wrong well I stand corrected but as it’s a stabilizer  power source it’s a mute point

DonDeeHippy wrote on Apr 9^th, 2018 at 9:47pm:



Yep. Doesn't overcome.

BigOl64 wrote on Apr 9^th, 2018 at 9:52pm:

Yes I was wrong
128 kWh into 30000 hours is 4 kWh each that sounds right

Now average passenger vehicle in aus uses 10l for 100 km and everage distance is 40kms a day so average car in aus uses 4 liters of fuel a day, 4 x $1.3 a liter of fuel is $5.20
The electric car with more than 200kms or range use 7kwh for 40 km (USA govt figures  28 kWh. For 100 miles)
I pay 27 c a kWh so 7*27 =$1.89
Now the SA battery is 128000 kWh
So 12800 devided by 7 is 18200
Therefore the battery can recharge 18200 cars a day for the amount a average car is used in Australia .
18200 vehicals average fuel would be  72000L a day with a cost of $90000 if fuel is $1.30 a L
That’s 26.5 million liters of fuel a year that this battery could replace
I suppose 30000 houses for a hour looks bad but there r many uses this battery could have thats profitable besides the very profitable use it has now as a stabilizer and  has already saved  SA govt approx 7 mil in one day
It only Needs to do that 3 times every 2 years to pay for itself

I don’t see anyone saying we need  a 1000 of them to replace the existing power plants, yet that seams to be the argument against it

DonDeeHippy wrote on Apr 12^th, 2018 at 8:54pm:



Well everyone who argues for renewables and demand that coal is so last century is ether demanding constant black out or massively expensive batteries.

Renewable power is unreliable / intermittent power unless it can be stored, and that my friend costs money, more money that we actual have to spend on such things.

We are being driven into third world energy outcomes due to fear and ignorance. And you segue to 'refueling' electric cars that don't exist is not really relevant.


We as a country produce about 1% of the world's CO2, there is no need to bankrupt ourselves over dodgy technology and fear.

lee wrote on Apr 12^th, 2018 at 9:35pm:


Umm build 2.................

if you dont want any emissions then go Nuclear...

if you don't want to go Nuclear then pipe down.... 

DonDeeHippy wrote on Apr 13^th, 2018 at 5:27pm:



Aren't you going to turn the motor on first? DonDeeHippy wrote on Apr 13^th, 2018 at 5:27pm:



What about lead?