Electricity costs: Renewables beat fossil fuels
Even back in 2019, authoritative reports showed that the cost of renewable electricity had dropped below that of fossil fuel electricity.
A joint CSIRO & AEMO study: 2018
Electricity from new generators:
Renewables with storage is cheaper than coal & gas.
An authoritative joint CSIRO and AEMO study examined the costs of building new electricity generators in Australia. They considered all technologies and concluded that building new solar and wind generators was the cheapest option, even when including the added cost of energy storage. These solar and wind options are cheaper than new coal generators even when coal is subsidised by excluding any cost for carbon emissions.
As storage has been included in the cost of these renewable generators, they can provide electricity when it is needed, “dispatchable electricity” or “firmed renewable electricity.”
CSIRO / AEMO research report: Annual update finds renewables are cheapest new-build power (CSIRO and AEMO: December 2018)
CSIRO / AEMO study says wind and solar clearly cheaper than coal
(Renew Economy, 21 Dec 2018)
*** About AEMO: The Australian Energy Market Operator worked with the CSIRO to produce the above report. AEMO is responsible for the daily running of Australia’s largest gas and electricity markets and power systems. AEMO makes minute-by-minute decisions to balance the Australian National Electricity Market and provides planning, forecasting and data for our power system. For example, their website shows a graph of the 30-minute spot price for electricity in each state over the last 36 hours. (www.aemo.com.au )
*** About CSIRO: The Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industry Research Organisation is Australia’s leading scientific research organisation. (www.csiro.au)
International Renewable Energy Agency
Renewable electricity is cheapest & getting cheaper fast
- Renewable energy costs have decreased and will continue to decrease as more renewable generation is built and as the technology continues improving.
- The price of solar PV modules has dropped about 80% over ten years. Allowing for compounding, this is 15% a year.
- The price of wind turbines has also dropped about 35% over ten years, i.e. 4 % per year.
The International Renewable Energy Agency (www.irena.org/costs)
Bloomberg analysis: Nov 2018
For cheap electricity, install renewables. The cost of (1) building new wind and solar generators, including the capital costs, is less than that of (2) running existing black coal generators using export coal prices, with no capital costs and no costs for carbon emissions.
(The age of cheap coal power is over for Australia, says BNEF: Renew Economy, 8 May 2019)
(New wind and solar now as cheap as existing coal: Climate Council: 6 Dec 2018)
(Why coal, and not renewables, is the root cause of surging Australia power prices: Renew Economy, 3 Dec 2018)
(The stunning wind, solar and battery costs the coalition refuses to accept: Renew Economy: 23 Nov 2018)
*** About Bloomberg New Energy Finance: BNEF is a leading provider of primary research on clean energy, advanced transport, digital industry, innovative materials, and commodities ( https://about.bnef.com/about )
Lazard Report: Nov 2019
(Lazard: Wind & solar now match even the marginal costs of coal power: Renew Economy: 8 Nov 2019)
Lazard is a global financial advice & asset management company
Electricity costs: July 2019
- Coal generators: $140 per Megawatt-hour
- Nuclear: $200 per Megawatt-hour
- Wind: $44 per Megawatt-hour
- Solar: $50 per Megawatt-hour
(Queensland says wind and solar less than 50 dollars per megawatt-hour: Renew Economy: 29 July 2019)
Strange Coalition claims about electricity costs.
The Australian Federal Coalition parties are pushing hard for new coal electricity generation and claiming that it will bring down the cost of electricity. It is amazing that they can take this stance when it is contradicted by key players in the industry and authoritative Australian studies.
Updated 1 Jun 2023