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Global Solar Installations on Track for Another Record Year

Solar capacity around the world will be installed at a record pace in 2024,
as bargain panel prices help countries’ efforts to deploy cleaner energy.
Global additions are set to hit 593 gigawatts this year, a jump of about
29% from last year, London-based energy research firm Ember said in a new
report. The increase comes on top of a near doubling of new installations
in 2023, and largely matches a forecast from BloombergNEF.

Bloomberg 19th Sept 2024 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-09-18/global-solar-installations-on-track-for-another-record-year

September 23, 2024 Posted by | renewable | Leave a comment

Renewables beat nuclear – even with full balancing included

RENEW EXTRA WEEKLY, 9 Sept 24

A new Danish study comparing nuclear and renewable energy systems (RES) concludes that, although nuclear systems require less flexibility capacity than renewable-only systems, a renewable energy system is cheaper than a nuclear based system, even with full backup: it says ‘lower flexibility costs do not offset the high investment costs in nuclear energy’. 

It’s based on a zero-carbon 2045 smart energy scenario for Denmark, although it says its conclusions are valid elsewhere given suitable adjustments for local conditions. ‘The high investment costs in nuclear power alongside cost for fuel and operation and maintenance more than tip the scale in favour of the Only Renewables scenario. The costs of investing in and operating the nuclear power plants are simply too high compared to Only Renewables scenario, even though more investment must be put into flexibility measures in the latter’. 

In the Danish case, it says that ‘the scenario with high nuclear implementation is 1.2 billion EUR more expensive annually compared to a scenario only based on renewables, with all systems completely balancing supply and demand across all energy sectors in every hour.’ It goes on ‘to achieve a more cost-efficient system based predominantly on nuclear power- the investment costs would have to drop to 1.55 MEU/MW. This is significantly below any current or future cost projection for nuclear power. Such a high cost-margin indicates that a combination of low-cost RES and sector coupling presents a cost-effective energy transition making it very hard for nuclear power to deliver a competitive alternative’…………………………………………………………………………….

Interestingly, in the UK context, Lord Turner, Chair of the UK Energy Transitions Commission, has also said that costly new nuclear plants may not be needed for net zero, since there are cheaper, low-carbon alternatives that could back up intermittent renewables. Hydrogen fuel or gas power plants fitted with CCS could fill the gap when wind or solar was not enough to keep the lights on. ‘I don’t think it is the case that you  need new nuclear to balance the system. The systems of the future don’t absolutely need a base load.’ The power system ‘can work on a combination of intermittent variable renewables, wind & solar plus some hydro. I think the challenge for new nuclear is that  it is just expensive. Bluntly, new nuclear can play very little role in a 2030 target.’

Well maybe that’s why there seems to have been some second thoughts about the new EPR reactor proposed for Sizewell in the UK, with the final investment decision for the Sizewell C nuclear plant evidently facing delays. Initially, EDF, the project’s developer, aimed to secure funding by the end of this year, but the timeline may now extend into 2025.

The prospect for nuclear do seem a bit uncertain, with the case for it these day relying in part on the claim that it can back up renewables and help avoid climate change.  But that also seems to be uncertain, as is argued in a new comprehensive review of nuclear issues by academics from Germany and Finland, arguing that it has no role to play in responding to climate change. It says that it is ‘not a sustainable and affordable source of energy for the low-carbon energy transformation’ given its ‘cost-intensive nature, coupled with safety considerations’. And crucially it says that it is ‘characterized by very long construction times, and even longer developments of new technical generations, too far away and uncertain to contribute to climate change mitigation anytime soon’. 

 In addition ‘from an energy system perspective, nuclear power is not compatible with a system based on renewables, but rather hinders its expansion. Last but not least, nuclear power is particularly unfavorable in a future with higher temperatures and weather extremes and more military threats’. 

That sounds pretty damning, even leaving aside radioactive waste handing, and also weapons proliferation and terrorism-related issues, with, as Prof. Ramana discusses in his recent powerful overview book ‘Nuclear is not the solution’, in addition to its other problems, reliance on civil nuclear power making ‘catastrophic nuclear war more likely’. Even if, hopefully, we can avoid that, there are still concerns about nuclear blackmail. And all this just to generate expensive energy.  

Yes, going for renewables does mean we have invest in flexible balancing technology and energy storage, but that is cheaper overall and it also getting even cheaper, with many new options emerging. As Ramana says, to balance the variability of renewables, ‘we must invest in a mix of renewable energy technologies across various regions, and in battery and other storage technologies to store excess energy. In addition, we need to shape electricity demand to more closely match supply.’ In common with the German and Finnish researchers, he too sees that as the way ahead. https://renewextraweekly.blogspot.com/2024/09/renewables-beat-nuclear-even-with-full.html

September 10, 2024 Posted by | EUROPE, renewable | Leave a comment

The massive new projects propelling South Australia towards 100 per cent net renewables

 The season of renewable records has begun early in Australia, sending
average coal power down below 50 per cent for the first time, establishing
new records for wind output, and sending grid demand to new lows across the
main grid.

The state at the forefront of the country’s energy transition
is, without a shadow of a doubt, South Australia. It kicked out coal in
2016, and is steadily reducing its dependence on gas. When a new
transmission link to NSW is completed in the next two years, the state
expects to run at 100 per cent net renewables – reducing gas to a support
role and becoming the first multi-gigawatt scale grid in the world to reach
such a milestone through wind and solar, rather than more conventional
renewable sources.

Big industry is lining up to build new factories and
production facilities to take advantage of cleaner power and lower
wholesale prices, and BHP is talking of doubling its mining production at
the giant Olympic Dam – and its smelting and refining capacity. The
latest data shows that wind and solar provided enough power to meet more
than 70 per cent of the state’s electricity demand in the last 12 months
– although the government says it is 75 per cent.

Over the past 30 days
it has been 86.4 per cent, and over the past week it has been more than 105
per cent. Rooftop solar now supplies the equivalent of all state demand on
occasions, presenting a complication for the market operator which prefers
to run the grid with assets it can control. It’s working on that solution
with new inverter standards and grid protocols, including solar
switch-offs. South Australia also led the country, and the world, in the
installation of the first big battery, the original “Tesla Big Battery”
now properly known as the Hornsdale Power Reserve.

 Renew Economy 6th Sept 2024

https://reneweconomy.com.au/the-massive-new-projects-propelling-south-australia-towards-100-per-cent-net-renewables/

September 8, 2024 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, renewable | Leave a comment

Hokkaido more plugged in to renewable energy than rest of Japan

 Hokkaido had over 40% of its electricity generated by renewable energy
sources in fiscal 2023, nearly twice the national average and already above
the maximum share that the central government is looking to achieve by
2030.

With use of renewables — especially wind power — expected to grow
further, the local government has set a goal of getting 60% of its
electricity from solar, on and offshore wind, biomass, hydropower,
geothermal and some nuclear energy by 2030.

For all of Japan, the average
goal is to have between 36% and 38% of electricity be from renewables by
then.

 Japan Times 26th Aug 2024

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2024/08/26/japan/society/hokkaido-renewable-energy/

August 29, 2024 Posted by | Japan, renewable | Leave a comment

‘Massive disinformation campaign’ is slowing global transition to green energy

UN says a global ‘backlash’ against climate action is being stoked by fossil fuel companies

Fiona Harvey Environment editor, Thu 8 Aug 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/aug/08/fossil-fuel-industry-using-disinformation-campaign-to-slow-green-transition-says-un

Fossil fuel companies are running “a massive mis- and disinformation campaign” so that countries will slow down the adoption of renewable energy and the speed with which they “transition away” from a carbon-intensive economy, the UN has said.

Selwin Hart, the assistant secretary general of the UN, said that talk of a global “backlash” against climate action was being stoked by the fossil fuel industry, in an effort to persuade world leaders to delay emissions-cutting policies. The perception among many political observers of a rejection of climate policies was a result of this campaign, rather than reflecting the reality of what people think, he added.

“There is this prevailing narrative – and a lot of it is being pushed by the fossil fuel industry and their enablers – that climate action is too difficult, it’s too expensive,” he said. “It is absolutely critical that leaders, and all of us, push back and explain to people the value of climate action, but also the consequences of climate inaction.”

He contrasted the perception of a backlash with the findings of the biggest poll ever conducted on the climate, which found clear majorities of people around the world supporting measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The survey found 72% of people wanted a “quick transition” away from fossil fuels, including majorities in the countries that produce the most coal, oil and gas. Green parties and plans may have suffered reverses in some parts of the world, he said, but in others they have gained seats, and seen policies that would once have been considered radical enter the mainstream.

Governments must take note, said Hart, who acts as special adviser on climate to the UN secretary general, António Guterres. “This should alert political leaders – those that are ambitious are not only on the right side of history, they’re on the side of their people as well.

“Climate appears to be dropping down the list of priorities of leaders,” he said. “But we really need leaders now to deliver maximum ambition. And we need maximum cooperation. Unfortunately, we are not seeing that at the moment.”

He warned that the consequences of inaction were being felt in rich countries as well as poor. In the US, many thousands of people are finding it increasingly impossible to insure their homes, as extreme weather worsens. “This is directly due to the climate crisis, and directly due to the use of fossil fuels,” he said. “Ordinary people are having to pay the price of a climate crisis while the fossil fuel industry continues to reap excess profits and still receives massive government subsidies.”

Yet the world has never been better equipped to tackle climate breakdown, Hart added. “Renewables are the cheapest they’ve ever been, the pace of the energy transition is accelerating,” he said.

Governments should also take care to ensure that their climate policies did not place unfair burdens on those on low incomes, as poorly designed measures could hurt the poor, according to Hart. “Each country will really need to ensure its transition is well planned to minimise the impact on people and vulnerable populations, because a lot of the so-called pushback comes when there’s a perception that the costs on poor and vulnerable persons are being disproportionately felt,” he said.

For that reason, the UN is calling for new national plans on the emissions reductions required under the 2015 Paris agreement, in which governments must set out clearly not just their targets but how they will be achieved through policy, and what the probable impacts are.

The new national plans, called nationally determined contributions (NDCs), should be “as consultative as possible so that whole segments of society – young people, women, children, workers – will be able to provide their perspective on how the transition should be planned and well-managed, and how it will be financed”, he said.

“Despite everything we see [in the form of extreme weather], we’re still not seeing the level of ambition or action that the world desperately needs.”

August 10, 2024 Posted by | climate change, media, renewable, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Renewables are crushing gas-fired power

Europe’s electricity system is transitioning at breakneck speed.
Renewables are displacing thermal generation so fast that gas-fired power
has slumped to a two-decade low. Continental Europe produced less
electricity from natural gas over the first seven months of this year than
at any time since 2005, according to research by Energy Flux. A few
countries bucked the trend, but at the regional level there is no sign of
this changing any time soon. The continent’s full-throttled embrace of
wind and solar — combined with the return of French nuclear, and Alpine
hydro, milder winters and a weak economic recovery — has dislodged gas
from the heart of many EU power markets. The transformation is both
astonishing and alarming. Europe’s great gas power slump has wiped out
the equivalent of the combined annual primary gas demand of Denmark,
Ireland, Norway and Portugal since 2017. That’s roughly 240 cargoes of
liquefied natural gas (LNG) every year, no longer needed.

 Energy Flux 1st Aug 2024

https://www.energyflux.news/p/renewable-crushing-gas-fired-power-wind-solar-eu

August 3, 2024 Posted by | EUROPE, renewable | Leave a comment

How much electricity comes from the Sun on summer days in the UK?

With blazing sun across the UK, the past week has seen solar energy’s
contribution to Britain’s energy mixture hit levels of up to 32% –
highlighting how much the sun can contribute to the country’s electricity
supplies. Each summer, the levels of solar energy in use rise, according to
Christelle Barnes, vice-chair at Solar Energy UK and UK general manager at
SolarEdge. “Every year, that percentage number just gets a little bit
higher. So it was typically between 25% and 27% over the last couple of
years. So just seeing numbers like 30% now is definitely showing that we’re
continuing to deploy more solar,” she told Yahoo News.

Yahoo News 31st July 2024

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/how-much-electricity-sun-summer-uk-172202857.html

 More than 885 solar panels have been installed on two Scottish Water sites
in the Central Belt, helping to save 57 tonnes of carbon a year and address
the increasing urgency of climate change. The projects have seen 512 photovoltaic (PV) panels installed at
Bothwellbank Waste Water Treatment Works in South Lanarkshire, which are
able to generate 0.23GWh of power and will offset around a fifth of the
site’s energy needs. In addition, 373 tank-mounted PV panels are now in
place at Roseberry Water Treatment Works in Midlothian, supplementing 178
panels which were installed as part of a previous scheme. The site can now
generate a total of 0.18GWh of energy, offsetting 12% of its energy needs.
Combined, these installations are expected to produce 0.41GWh of green
electricity each year – equivalent to the energy needed to boil around
1.8 million kettles annually. This latest £678,000 investment by Scottish
Water and its commercial subsidiary, Scottish Water Horizons, sees the
sites join a growing list of water and waste water treatment works which
are now either self-sufficient or partly sufficient in their power
requirements.

 Midlothian View 31st July 2024

Solar energy boost cuts carbon at Central Belt treatment works

August 3, 2024 Posted by | renewable, UK | Leave a comment

California achieves 100% renewable energy for 100 days.

 On 100 out of 144 days since 8 March, California’s electricity has been supplied fully by
renewable energy for at least part of the day.

 Power Technology 30th July 2024

https://www.power-technology.com/news/california-achieves-100-renewable-energy-for-100-days/

August 3, 2024 Posted by | renewable, USA | Leave a comment

This nuclear waste site could soon host a massive solar installation

The Hanford Site in Washington state, a radioactive relic of the Manhattan Project and Cold War, was selected by DOE to be outfitted with up to 1GW of solar.

By Carrie Klein, 30 July 2024, https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/solar/this-nuclear-waste-site-could-soon-host-a-massive-solar-installation—

The U.S. Department of Energy announced plans last week to transform a contaminated former nuclear weapons production site into what could be the largest solar project in the country. The installation would stretch across up to 8,000 acres in south-central Washington state and boast up to 1 gigawatt of energy capacity — enough to power 750,000 homes.

One of the core challenges of building large solar installations is deciding where to put them. Local residents and farmers sometimes protest the use of agricultural land, while environmentalists urge caution in disturbing ecosystems. But this project location, known as the Hanford Site, is heavily contaminated from decades of atomic weapons production — first as part of the Manhattan Project and later during the Cold War.

Weapons production at Hanford created around 56 million gallons of radioactive and chemical waste, plus millions of cubic feet of solid waste and billions of gallons of less contaminated liquids. During production and upon Hanford’s decommissioning in the early 1990s, much of this waste was disposed of in concrete-lined pits, trenches, and ponds, and has since leached into the Columbia River basin, contaminating groundwater and causing health issues for locals.

Building solar at this location is ​“a great way to reuse land that has limited potential for other uses,” said Nels Johnson, senior advisor for renewable energy at The Nature Conservancy, who notes that ​“it means we’re not converting” prime farmland.

The project is part of the DOE’s new program Cleanup to Clean Energy, launched last year to help attain the climate goals in President Joe Biden’s 2021 executive order directing federal agencies to develop clean energy generation on their properties, with the goal of those agencies achieving 100 percent clean electricity by 2030.

The department announced the program’s first two projects — also solar installations — in June and July. One project will be located on 890 square miles of Idaho National Laboratory land and will feature 400 megawatts of solar capacity. The other will take up 2,400 acres of the Nevada National Security Site and has a capacity of 200 megawatts.

The Hanford project aims to generate the most energy by far — and, in addition to potentially becoming the largest solar project in the country, Johnson said that it would certainly be the largest on mine land, brownfield, or other degraded land.

Real estate negotiations are currently underway between the DOE and renewable energy developer Hecate Energy. Once an agreement is reached, Hecate will lead environmental reviews, including cultural resource surveys and consultations with local tribal nations, a DOE spokesperson told Canary Media. Hecate will also assess the impact of the proposed power generation on the grid to determine if any transmission upgrades are needed. These environmental and grid assessments could impact the ultimate size of the installation, according to the DOE.

The department declined to share a target timeline for the project.

In Benton County, where the Hanford Site sits, the Tri-City Development Council (TRIDEC) sees the solar installation as part of a larger transformation of the economy. The council, originally created to help diversify employment so the county was less dependent on federal funding, is planning several other renewable energy projects, along with ​“decarbonized manufacturing and industrial” projects, said Sean O’Brien, executive director at TRIDEC. ​“We very much envision that there will be a strong appetite for the electrons that this project will produce.”

Cleanup of the Hanford Site will be ongoing while the solar project moves forward into construction and operation in the coming years. ​“We can be doing both,” O’Brien said. The project itself will mostly be located on land that doesn’t require environmental remediation work, he said.

The Hanford Site is 560 square miles — about half the size of the state of Rhode Island. Since the late 1990s, workers have ​“cocooned,” or covered, seven nuclear reactors, removed 600 tons of contaminants from groundwater, and treated 32 billion gallons more. But decades of work still remain to fully remediate the site, O’Brien said. Adding solar to the site doesn’t change that, though it does at least put the land to productive use in the meantime.

August 2, 2024 Posted by | renewable, USA | Leave a comment

China is installing the wind and solar equivalent of five large nuclear power stations per week

Instead of nuclear, solar is now intended to be the foundation of China’s new electricity generation system.

ABC Science / By technology reporter James Purtill, 16 July 24,  https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2024-07-16/chinas-renewable-energy-boom-breaks-records/104086640

In short:

China is installing record amounts of solar and wind, while scaling back once-ambitious plans for nuclear.

While Australia is falling behind its renewables installation targets, China may meet its end-of-2030 target by the end of this month, according to a report.

What’s next?

Energy experts are looking to China, the world’s largest emitter and once a climate villain, for lessons on how to rapidly decarbonise.

While Australia debates the merits of going nuclear and frustration grows over the slower-than-needed rollout of solar and wind power, China is going all in on renewables.

New figures show the pace of its clean energy transition is roughly the equivalent of installing five large-scale nuclear power plants worth of renewables every week.

A report by Sydney-based think tank Climate Energy Finance (CEF) said China was installing renewables so rapidly it would meet its end-of-2030 target by the end of this month — or 6.5 years early. 

It’s installing at least 10 gigawatts of wind and solar generation capacity every fortnight.

By comparison, experts have said the Coalition’s plan to build seven nuclear power plants would add fewer than 10GW of generation capacity to the grid some time after 2035. 

Energy experts are looking to China, the world’s largest emitter, once seen as a climate villain, for lessons on how to go green, fast.

“We’ve seen America under President Biden throw a trillion dollars on the table [for clean energy],” CEF director Tim Buckley said.

“China’s response to that has been to double down and go twice as fast.”

Smart Energy Council CEO John Grimes, who recently returned from a Shanghai energy conference, said China has decarbonised its grid almost as quickly as Australia, despite having a much harder task due to the scale of its energy demand.

“They have clear targets and every part of their government is harnessed to deliver the plan,” he said.

China accounts for about a third of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. A recent drop in emissions (the first since relaxing COVID-19 restrictions), combined with the decarbonisation of the power grid, may mean the country’s emissions have peaked.

“With the power sector going green, emissions are set to plateau and then progressively fall towards 2030 and beyond,” CEF China energy policy analyst Xuyang Dong said.

So how is China building and connecting panels so fast, and what’s the role of nuclear in its transition?

Like building solar farms near Perth to power Sydney

Because its large cities of the eastern seaboard are dominated by apartment buildings, China hasn’t seen an uptake of rooftop solar like in Australia.

To find space for all the solar panels and wind turbines required for the nation’s energy needs, the planners of China’s energy transition have looked west, to areas like the Gobi Desert.

The world’s largest solar and wind farms are being built on the western edge of the country and connected to the east via the world’s longest high-voltage transmission lines.

These lines are so long they could span the length of our continent.

In Australian terms, it’s the equivalent of using solar panels near Perth to power homes in Sydney.

Mr Buckley said China’s approach was similar to the Australian one of developing regional “renewable energy zones” for large-scale electricity generation.

“They’re doing what Australia is doing with renewable energy zones but they’re doing it on steroids,” he said.

What about ‘firming’ the grid?

One of the issues with switching a grid to intermittent renewables is ensuring a steady supply of power.

In technical terms, this is the difference between generation capacity (measured in gigawatts) and actual energy output (measured in gigawatt-hours, or generation over time).

Renewables have a “capacity factor” (the ratio of actual output to maximum potential generation) of about 25 per cent, whereas nuclear’s is as high as 90 per cent.

So although China is installing solar and wind generation equivalent to five large nuclear power plants per week, their output is closer to one nuclear plant per week.

Renewables account for more than half of installed capacity in China, but only amount to about one-fifth of actual energy output over a year, the CEF’s Tim Buckley said.

To “firm” or stabilise the supply of power from its renewable energy zones, China is using a mix of pumped hydro and battery storage, similar to Australia. 

“They’re installing 1GW per month of pumped hydro storage,” Mr Buckley said.

“We’re struggling to build the 2GW Snowy 2.0 in 10 years.”

There are some major differences between Australia and China’s approaches, though.  Somewhat counterintuitively, China has built dozens of coal-fired power stations alongside its renewable energy zones, to maintain the pace of its clean energy transition.

China was responsible for 95 per cent of the world’s new coal power construction activity last year. 

The new plants are partly needed to meet demand for electricity, which has gone up as more energy-hungry sectors of the economy, like transport, are electrified.

The coal-fired plants are also being used, like the batteries and pumped hydro, to provide a stable supply of power down the transmission lines from renewable energy zones, balancing out the intermittent solar and wind.

Despite these new coal plants, coal’s share of total electricity generation in the country is falling. 

The China Energy Council estimated renewables generation would overtake coal by the end of this year.

The CEF’s Xuyang Dong said despite the country’s reliance on coal, “having China go green at this speed and scale provides the world with a textbook to do the same”.

“China is installing every week the equivalent of what we’re doing every year.”

Despite this speed, China wasn’t installing renewables fast enough to meet its 2060 carbon neutrality target, she added.

“According to our analysis, [the current rate of installation] is not ambitious enough for China.”

What about nuclear?

China is building new nuclear plants, although nowhere near as fast as it once intended.

In 2011, Chinese authorities announced fission reactors would become the foundation of the country’s electricity generation system in the next “10 to 20 years”.

But Japan’s 2011 Fukushima disaster prompted a moratorium on inland nuclear plants, which have to use river water for cooling and are more vulnerable to frequent flooding.

Meanwhile, over the following decade, solar became the cheapest electricity in the world. 

From 2010 to 2020, the installed cost of utility-scale solar PV declined by 81 per cent on a global average basis.

As well as cheap, it was safe, which made solar farms quicker to build than nuclear reactors.

Instead of nuclear, solar is now intended to be the foundation of China’s new electricity generation system.
Authorities have steadily downgraded plans for nuclear to dominate China’s energy generation. At present, the goal is 18 per cent of generation by 2060.

China installed 1GW of nuclear last year, compared to 300GW of solar and wind, Mr Buckley said.

“That says they’re all in on renewables.

“They had grand plans for nuclear to be massive but they’re behind on nuclear by a decade and five years ahead of schedule on solar and wind.”

How is China transitioning so fast?

In June of this year, on the eve of the Coalition’s nuclear policy announcement, former Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, who’s now a Smart Energy Council “international ambassador”, led a delegation of Australians to the world’s largest clean energy conference in Shanghai.

The annual Smart Energy Conference hosts more than 600,000 delegates across three days.

Its scale underlines China’s increasing dominance of the global clean energy economy and, for some attendees, prompted unenviable comparisons with Australia’s progress.

Mr Buckley, who was part of the delegation, said he was “blown away”.

“China is winning this race.”

John Grimes, the Smart Energy Council CEO who also attended, said Australia could learn from the Chinese government’s ability to execute a long-term, difficult and costly transition plan, rather than relying on market forces to find a solution.

“Australia’s transition is going too slow, there was a lost decade of action,” he said.

“The world today spends about $7 trillion a year on coal, gas and oil and that money is going to find a new home.

Who is going to be the economic winner in that global economic transition? It’s going to be China.”

He and other energy experts are frustrated with the progress of Australia’s transition, including the discussion of nuclear power and the “weaponisation of dissent” from community groups over new wind farms and transmission lines.

Stephanie Bashir, CEO of the Nexa energy advisory, said Australia’s transition was tangled in red tape.

“The key hold-up for a lot of projects is the slow planning approvals,” Ms Bashir, who also attended the conference, said.

“In China they decide they’re going to do something and then they go and do it.”

The Australian Energy Market Operator’s (AEMO) plan to decarbonise the grid and ensure the lights stay on when the coal-fired power stations close requires thousands of kilometres of new transmission lines and large-scale solar and wind farms.

Australia is installing about half the amount of renewables per year required under the plan.

Due to this shortfall, many experts say its unlikely to meet its 2030 target of 82 per cent renewables in the grid and 43 per cent emissions reduction.

“We need to build 6GW each year from now until each power station closes, and so far we’re only bringing online 3GW,” Ms Bashir said.

“If we identify some projects are nation-building … and we need them for transition, we just have to get on with it.”

Mr Buckley predicted China would accelerate its deployment of renewables.

“My forecast is it will lift 20 per cent per annum on current levels.”

July 17, 2024 Posted by | China, renewable | Leave a comment

Solar power will lead globally- says Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI)

‘Solar will very shortly overtake every other type of electricity generation and together with batteries, will electrify everything, everywhere’ says the Colorado-based Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI)  in a new report on the cleantech revolution. Certainly renewables generation is now very cheap and solar PV deployment is doubling every 2-3 years, while battery storage, for backup, is doubling every year.  Wind is also doing well around the world, with offshore wind leading in some locations, as I reported in an earlier post, and some new major projects going ahead.   

Overall, RMI say that ‘clean technologies will continue to follow S-curves, cascading across sectors and geographies,’ with China, the world’s largest energy consumer, in the lead.  It explains that ‘China, lacks oil and gas, and cleantech is a path to leadership, clean air, and zero emissions’. And so it will ‘continue to deploy cleantech rapidly’. So it sees China as ‘the pivot nation in the transition away from fossil fuels, and most areas of demand have clearly peaked there’. Also ‘peaks are showing up across the Global South, from S. America to South Africa & Thailand’.

It’s very optimistic stuff, reflecting the approach of  RMI’s founder Dr Amory Lovins. Away with the old, in with the new- and fast. It says ‘S-curves imply that by 2030 solar and wind generation will triple to over 12,000 TWh and EVs will be two-thirds of car sales,’ pushing fossil use even further out. Taking a broad view , RMI claims that ‘New fossil electricity capacity peaked in 2010, oil and gas capex in 2014, and internal combustion engine car sales in 2017. Fossil demand peaked for industry in 2014, for buildings in 2018, most likely for electricity in 2023, and will shortly peak in transport’, and it says that this will continue,  since ‘the drivers of growth are more powerful than the barriers. Falling cleantech costs, the energy security of eternal renewables, Chinese leadership, and a race to the top will continue to overwhelm a fragile fossil fuel system which wastes two-thirds of its primary energy and fails to pay for its externality costs’.

Well maybe, and China does have some very large solar PV projects, but it is not exactly a bastion of freedom! And in the short term at least there is still a lot of fossil fuel being used there, and elsewhere, as a new study from the UK  Energy Institute (EI) and co-authors KPMG and Kearney notes. But it also notes that global renewable generation, excluding hydro, was up 13% to a record global high of 4,748TWh in 2023, due almost entirely by wind and solar expansion, led by China, which added 55% of all renewable generation additions in 2023. 

Meantime, nuclear is still in the game, including in China. Indeed, the US Energy Information Administration says that  ‘China continues rapid growth of nuclear power capacity’, although the chart it uses to support this assertion says it shows ‘annual installed’ net  capacity, whereas, in fact it shows total capacity and growth in that has actually been slowing.

It’s 58GW now, only making a small overall power contribution in China- EIA says 5% in 2023. By contrast, as noted above, renewables are roaring ahead in China- growing 4 times faster than in the G7 countries overall, with wind and solar adding almost 300GW last year. And  it is on track reach 1,200GW of wind and solar total capacity by end of 2024 – 6 years ahead of target. 

Ever hopeful though, the nuclear lobby globally still looks to new technology, like Small Modular Reactors, to improve things, even if so far that doesn’t look too promising, with, as a Reuters article reports, there being  project failures and high costs.  But, SMR apologists say, it is early days yet- first designs often have problems and it takes time to get costs down. However, it would require some very radical cost reductions to compete with renewables, now at all time low costs, especially since they are likely to continue to getting cheaper.  ………………………………………………………………………………..

Good thing we still have the free fusion reactor in the sky….with Ember reporting that global use of solar PV has expanded by 23% last year, and wind power by 10%, with renewables overall now supplying around 30% of global power and wind and solar projected to supply nearly 70% of global electricity by 2050. Moreover, some studies have suggested that renewables overall could supply around 100% of all power, or even all energy, by then, with solar playing a major role. https://renewextraweekly.blogspot.com/2024/07/solar-power-will-lead-globally-says-rmi.html

July 15, 2024 Posted by | renewable | Leave a comment

U.S. Solar and Wind Power Generation Tops Nuclear for First Time

By Charles Kennedy – Jul 11, 2024,  https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/US-Solar-and-Wind-Power-Generation-Tops-Nuclear-for-First-Time.html?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR36aY_qZHusiBuonQ8wnoYKA4biHRxGFjpdJPHNpgny-jFyIN5ZFM3NUL8_aem_2gvOQUW4tXrqTe8rUaH-xw

For the first time ever, U.S. electricity generation from utility-scale solar and wind exceeded nuclear power plants’ power output in the first half of 2024, according to data from energy think tank Ember quoted by Reuters columnist Gavin Maguire.

Electricity generation from solar and wind hit a record-high of 401.4 terawatt hours (TWh) between January and June 2024, surpassing the 390.5 TWh of power generated from nuclear power plants, Ember’s data showed.

Solar power generation jumped by 30% and electricity output from wind power rose by 10% in the first half of 2024, compared to the same period of last year.

In 2023, nuclear power accounted for 18.6% of U.S. electricity generation, while wind power output had a 10.2% share and solar accounted for 3.9% of total U.S. electricity output, according to data for 2023 from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Ember has estimated that the share of wind and solar grew to 16% in 2023, when nuclear was still the largest source of low-carbon electricity in the U.S.

However, expanding renewable energy capacity and record solar and wind power generation helped solar and wind combined to top nuclear as the biggest low-carbon electricity source during the first half of this year.  

Early in 2024, the EIA said that wind and solar energy would lead growth in U.S. power generation for the next two years.  

As a result of new solar projects coming on line this year, the administration forecast that U.S. solar power generation will surge by 75%, from 163 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) in 2023 to 286 billion kWh in 2025. The EIA also expects that wind power generation will grow by 11% from 430 billion kWh in 2023 to 476 billion kWh in 2025.

In 2023, all renewable sources—wind, solar, hydro, biomass, and geothermal—accounted for 22% of total U.S. power generation.

July 13, 2024 Posted by | renewable, USA | Leave a comment

“The Sun has won”: exponentially growing solar destroys nuclear, fossil fuels on price

Given Dutton’s claims about solar power costing more than nuclear are made ridiculous by the fact that solar’s break-even price has fallen by a factor of more than 1000 and the trend is continuing.

Meanwhile cost overruns in nuclear are endemic and SMR’s only exist in Dutton’s imagination.

By Noel Turnbull, Jul 11, 2024,  https://johnmenadue.com/the-sun-has-won-exponentially-growing-solar-destroys-nuclear-fossil-fuels-on-price/—

It’s not known if Peter Dutton [ Australia’s pro-nuclear Opposition leader] reads The Economist but if he does, he must probably think from time to time that it is sometimes dangerously left wing.

In the 22 June issue, it had a special essay on solar power – headlined ‘The Sun Machine’. The sub-head was “An energy source which gets cheaper the more you use it marks a turning-point in industrial history’.

The essay is a total contradiction of almost everything Dutton is claiming about nuclear and renewable energy.

“What makes solar energy revolutionary is the rate of growth which brought it to this just-beyond the marginal state”, the essay says.

They cite a veteran energy analyst, Michael Liebreich, who shows that in 2004 it took a year to install a gigawatt of solar power capacity; in 2010 it took a month; in 2016 a week; and in single days in 2023 there were a gigawatt of installation worldwide.

Current projections are that solar will generate more electricity than all the world’s nuclear plants in 2026; than wind turbines in 2027; dams in 2028; gas-fired plants in 2026; and coal-fired ones in 2032.

All that well before Dutton’s nuclear plants – if at all – start generating power. Moreover, unlike nuclear power which notoriously always takes longer to build than predicted, predictions about the rate of solar power roll-out are consistently under-estimates.

The Economist points out that in in 2009 The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicted solar would increase from 23GW to 244GW by 2030. It hit that milestone in 2016 – less than a third of the predicted time. The world capacity was 1419GW by 2023.

Ironically, one of the few organisations which got their predictions roughly right was Greenpeace – yet even their prediction was an under-estimate.

Given Dutton’s claims about solar power costing more than nuclear are made ridiculous by the fact that solar’s break-even price has fallen by a factor of more than 1000 and the trend is continuing. Meanwhile cost overruns in nuclear are endemic and SMR’s only exist in Dutton’s imagination.

Dutton is stronger on ideology and outrageous claims than economics, but the manufacture of photovoltaics is a classic example of the benefits of mass production – benefits which have always eluded the nuclear power industry.

As The Economist points out solar cells are standardised products all made in basically the same way and “they have no moving parts at all, let alone the fiendish complexity of a modern turbine.”

“Manufacturers compete on cost, by either making cells that make fractionally more electricity, by either making cells that make fractionally out of a given amount of sunshine or which cost less.”

Economics 101 teaches us that a commoditised product does not lead to more and more aggressive competition on the supply side – simply in this case by getting more electricity out of any given amount of sunshine or by costing less.

Rob Carlson, a technology investor, told The Economist: “There is no other energy-generation tech where you can install one million or one of the same thing depending on your application.”

“The Sun has won” he says.

The Economist said: “From the mid-1970 to the early 2020s cumulative shipments of photovoltaics increased by a factor of a million which is 20 doublings. At the same time prices dropped by a factor of 500. That is a 27% decrease in cost of doubling of installed capacity, which means a halving of costs every time installed capacity increases by 360%.

Adair Turner, an eminent economist and financial services executive, was Chair of Britian’s Climate Change Committee which was set up to help transition to zero emissions.

He told The Economist: “We totally failed to see that solar would come down so much.”

BloombergNEF estimated, in 2015, that the cost for solar on a global basis was $122 per MWH – higher than on shore wind and coal.  Today both solar and onshore wind are almost half the cost of coal.

Meanwhile, Dutton has welcomed Keir Starmer’s election win by pointing to his support for nuclear power. Which, given that the UK has already installed nuclear power, the cautious Starmer is unlikely to announce that he is closing it down.

Moreover, Starmer’s major problem with nuclear is managing the spiralling delays in, and cost of, nuclear plants being constructed following typical Tory blunders.

The question which Dutton needs to answer is why he knows more about nuclear and solar power than The Economist reporters, Bloomberg, Adair Turner, Rob Carlson, many major investment funds and the overwhelming majority of Australian scientists?

He might ponder all that while the Murdoch media is becoming a tad critical of him – criticising his policy on supermarket divestment and speculating on who might be the Liberal Party leader if Dutton loses the next election.

Meanwhile, notwithstanding their doubts about Dutton’s chances and policies (other than nuclear) The Australian never totally loses its manic opposition to anything progressive. The inimitable Greg Sheridan opined on The Australian front page (6/7) that Labour had not won but the Tories had lost. Partly true obviously, but his piece was enough to prompt the subs to headline the piece with “Self-described socialist is set to drag Britain far to the left”.

Sheridan also rehearsed his regular hates and speculated how it would all come undone.

Jeremy Corbyn would love that to be the case but Starmer not so.

Perhaps the funniest lines in Sheridan’s’ piece were: “Starmer is brainy and works hard. Too deep immersion in the law has rendered it impossible for Starmer to write felicitous prose or create memorable images.”

From a journalist who year after year simply reproduces the same old opinions on the same old subjects that is, to say the least, a bit much.

July 11, 2024 Posted by | renewable | Leave a comment

The nuclear and renewable myths that mainstream media can’t be bothered challenging

Mark Diesendorf, Jul 4, 2024,  https://reneweconomy.com.au/the-nuclear-and-renewable-myths-that-mainstream-media-cant-be-bothered-challenging/
Nuclear energy proponents are attempting to discredit renewable energy and promote nuclear energy and fossil gas in its place. This article refutes several myths they are disseminating that are receiving little or no challenge in the mainstream media.

Myth: Renewables cannot supply 100% electricity 

Denmark, South Australia and Scotland already obtain 88, 74 and 62 per cent of their respective annual electricity generations from renewables, mostly wind. Scotland actually supplies 113 per cent of its electricity consumption from renewables; the difference between its generation and consumption is exported by transmission line.

All three jurisdictions have achieved this with relatively small amounts of hydroelectricity, zero in South Australia. Given the political will, all three could reach 100% net renewables generation by 2030, as indeed two northern states of Germany have already done. The ‘net’ means that they trade some electricity with neighbours but on average will be at 100% renewables.

Computer simulations by several research groups – using real hourly wind, solar and demand data spanning several years – show that the Australian electricity system could be run entirely on renewable energy, with the main contributions coming from solar and wind. System reliability for 100% renewables will be maintained by a combination of storage, building excess generating capacity for wind and solar (which is cheap), key transmission links, and demand management encouraged by transparent pricing.

Storage to fill infrequent troughs in generation from the variable renewable sources will comprise existing hydro, pumped hydro (mostly small-scale and off-river), and batteries. Geographic dispersion of renewables will also assist managing the variability of wind and solar. For the possibility of rare, extended periods of Dunkelflaute (literally ‘dark doldrums’), gas turbines with stores of biofuels or green hydrogen could be kept in reserve as insurance.

Myth: Gas can fill the gap until nuclear is constructed

As a fuel for electricity generation, fossil gas in eastern Australia is many times more expensive per kilowatt-hour than coal. It is only used for fuelling gas turbines for meeting the peaks in demand and helping to fill troughs. For this purpose, it contributes about 5% of Australia’s annual electricity generation. But, as storage expands, fossil gas will become redundant in the electricity system.

The fact that baseload gas-fired electricity continues temporarily in Western Australia and South Australia is the result of peculiar histories that will not be repeated. Unlike the eastern states, WA has a Domestic Gas Reservation Policy that insulates customers from the high export prices of gas.

However, most new gas supplies would have to come from high-cost unconventional sources. South Australia’s ancient, struggling, baseload, gas-fired power station, Torrens Island, produces expensive electricity. It will be closed in 2026 and replaced with renewables and batteries.

Myth: Nuclear energy can co-exist with large contributions from renewables

This myth has two refutations:

  1. Nuclear is too inflexible in operation to be a good partner for variable wind and solar. Its very high capital cost necessitates running it constantly, not just during periods of low sun or wind. Its output can only be ramped up and down slowly, and it’s expensive to do that.
  3. On current growth trends of renewables, there will be no room for nuclear energy in South Australia, Victoria or NSW. The 2022 shares of renewables in total electricity generation in each of these states were 74%, 37% and 33% respectively.

  1. Rapid growth from these levels is likely. It’s already too late for nuclear in SA. Provided the growth of renewables is not deliberately suppressed in NSW and Victoria, these states too could reach 100% renewables before the first nuclear power station comes online.

As transportation and combustion heating will be electrified, demand for electricity could double by 2050. This might offer generating space for nuclear in the 2040s in Queensland (23% renewables in 2022) and Western Australia (20% renewables in 2022). However, the cost barrier would remain.

Myth: There is insufficient land for wind and solar

The claim by nuclear proponents that wind and solar have “vast land footprints” is misleading. Although a wind farm can span a large area, its turbines, access road and substation occupy a tiny fraction of that area, typically about 2%.

Most wind farms are built on land that was previously cleared for agriculture and are compatible with all forms of agriculture. Off-shore wind occupies no land.

Solar farms are increasingly being built sufficiently high off the ground to allow sheep to graze beneath them, providing welcome shade. This practice, known as agrivoltaics, provides additional farm revenue, which is especially valuable during droughts. Rooftop solar occupies no land.

Myth: The longer lifetime of nuclear reactors hasn’t been taken into account

The levelised cost of energy method – used by CSIRO, AEMO, Lazard and others –  is the standard way of comparing electricity generation technologies that perform similar functions.

It permits the comparison of coal, nuclear and firmed renewables. It takes account automatically of the different lifetimes of different technologies.

Myth: We need baseload power stations

The recent claim that nuclear energy is not very expensive “when we consider value” is just a variant of the old, discredited claim that we need baseload power stations, i.e. those that operate 24/7 at maximum power output for most of the time.

The renewable system, including storage, delivers the same reliability, and hence the same value, as the traditional system based on a mix of baseload and peak-load power stations.

When a nuclear power reactor breaks down, it can be useless for weeks or months. For a conventional large reactor rated at 1000 to 1600 megawatts, the impact of breakdown on electricity supply can be disastrous.

Big nuclear needs big back-up, which is expensive. Small modular reactors do not exist––not one is commercially available or likely to be in the foreseeable future.

Concluding remarks

We do not need expensive, dangerous nuclear power, or expensive, polluting fossil gas. A nuclear scenario would inevitably involve the irrational suppression of renewables.

The ban on nuclear power should be maintained because nuclear never competes in a so-called ‘free market’. Renewables – solar, wind and existing hydro – together with energy efficiency, can supply all Australia’s electricity.

Mark Diesendorf is Honorary Associate Professor at the Environment & Society Group in the School of Humanities & Languages and Faculty of Arts, Design & Architecture at UNSW. First published in Pearls and Irritations. Republished with permission of the author.

July 5, 2024 Posted by | renewable, spinbuster | Leave a comment

When it comes to power, solar is about to leave nuclear and everything else in the shade

In Australia, solar is pushing down prices

Australia’s energy market operator says record generation from grid-scale renewables and rooftop solar is pushing down wholesale electricity prices.

Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University July 2, 2024  https://theconversation.com/when-it-comes-to-power-solar-is-about-to-leave-nuclear-and-everything-else-in-the-shade-233644

Opposition leader Peter Dutton might have been hoping for an endorsement from economists for his plan to take Australian nuclear.

He shouldn’t expect one from The Economist.

The Economist is a British weekly news magazine that has reported on economic thinking and served as a place for economists to exchange views since 1843.

By chance, just three days after Dutton announced plans for seven nuclear reactors he said would usher in a new era of economic prosperity for Australia, The Economist produced a special issue, titled Dawn of the Solar Age.

Whereas nuclear power is barely growing, and is shrinking as a proportion of global power output, The Economist reported solar power is growing so quickly it is set to become the biggest source of electricity on the planet by the mid-2030s.

By the 2040s – within this next generation – it could be the world’s largest source of energy of any kind, overtaking fossil fuels like coal and oil.

Solar’s off-the-charts global growth

Installed solar capacity is doubling every three years, meaning it has grown tenfold in the past ten years. The Economist says the next tenfold increase will be the equivalent of multiplying the world’s entire fleet of nuclear reactors by eight, in less time than it usually takes to build one of them.

To give an idea of the standing start the industry has grown from, The Economist reports that in 2004 it took the world an entire year to install one gigawatt of solar capacity (about enough to power a small city). This year, that’s expected to happen every day.

Energy experts didn’t see it coming. The Economist includes a chart showing that every single forecast the International Energy Agency has made for the growth of the growth of solar since 2009 has been wrong. What the agency said would take 20 years happened in only six.

The forecasts closest to the mark were made by Greenpeace – “environmentalists poo-pooed for zealotry and economic illiteracy” – but even those forecasts turned out to be woefully short of what actually happened.

And the cost of solar cells has been plunging in the way that costs usually do when emerging technologies become mainstream.

The Economist describes the process this way:

As the cumulative production of a manufactured good increases, costs go down. As costs go down, demand goes up. As demand goes up, production increases – and costs go down further.

Normally, this can’t continue. In earlier energy transitions – from wood to coal, coal to oil, and oil to gas – it became increasingly expensive to find fuel.

But the main ingredient in solar cells (apart from energy) is sand, for the silicon and the glass. This is not only the case in China, which makes the bulk of the world’s solar cells, but also in India, which is short of power, blessed by sun and sand, and which is manufacturing and installing solar cells at a prodigious rate.

Solar easy, batteries more difficult

Batteries are more difficult. They are needed to make solar useful after dark and they require so-called critical minerals such as lithium, nickel and cobalt (which Australia has in abundance).

But the efficiency of batteries is soaring and the price is plummeting, meaning that on one estimate the cost of a kilowatt-hour of battery storage has fallen by 99% over the past 30 years.

In the United States, plans are being drawn up to use batteries to transport solar energy as well as store it. Why build high-voltage transmission cables when you can use train carriages full of batteries to move power from the remote sunny places that collect it to the cities that need it?

Solar’s step change

The International Energy Agency is suddenly optimistic. Its latest assessment released in January says last year saw a “step change” in renewable power, driven by China’s adoption of solar. In 2023, China installed as much solar capacity as the entire world did in 2022.

The world is on track to install more renewable capacity over the next five years than has ever been installed over the past 100 years, something the agency says still won’t be enough to get to net-zero emissions by 2050.

That would need renewables capacity to triple over the next five years, instead of more than doubling.

Oxford University energy specialist Rupert Way has modelled a “fast transition” scenario, in which the costs of solar and other new technologies keep falling as they have been rather than as the International Energy Agency expects.

He finds that by 2060, solar will be by far the world’s biggest source of energy, exceeding wind and green hydrogen and leaving nuclear with an infinitesimally tiny role.

In Australia, solar is pushing down prices

Australia’s energy market operator says record generation from grid-scale renewables and rooftop solar is pushing down wholesale electricity prices.

South Australia and Tasmania are the states that rely on renewables the most. They are the two states with the lowest wholesale electricity prices outside Victoria, whose prices are very low because of its reliance on brown coal.

It is price – rather than the environment – that most interests The Economist. It says when the price of something gets low people use much, much more of it.

As energy gets really copious and all but free, it will be used for things we can’t even imagine today. The Economist said to bet against that is to bet against capitalism.

July 4, 2024 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, renewable | Leave a comment

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