UK govt prioritising nuclear, gas, oil, but removing support for renewables
Government U-turn on renewables shows gas, oil and nuclear are still favourites
Now is not the time to pull the plug on supporting renewable energy. A few years of vital subsidies cannot make up for a century of support for fossil fuels. Guardian, Alasdair Cameron, 20 Dec 15
The entire global energy system is undergoing a clean revolution. The old certainties of centralised power and fossil fuels are falling apart before our eyes. In Paris last week world leaders set legally binding targets to decarbonise their economies in order to keep temperature rises at a maximum of 2C. The future is almost here.
It’s a future that is necessary and one that presents the economic opportunity of the century. Bloomberg NEFs New Energy Outlook for 2015 estimates that renewables alone will see more than $8tn of investment in the coming years with $3.7tn in solar alone.
Until recently the UK seemed to understand this, however imperfectly. In the second quarter of this year, the UK got 25% of its electricity from renewables and is aiming for 30% by 2020. The last two governments deserve credit for that.
Costs have fallen, with the latest ground-mounted solar and onshore wind now cheaper than new nuclear , and offshore wind – where the UK is a world leader – is not far behind.
The government’s line is that it’s time to pull the plug on supporting renewable energy – as if a few years of vital subsidies can make up for a century of economic and infrastructural support for fossil fuels. Renewable energy, like most industries, needs some government support to get going, and to realise the best results. Think of the tax breaksand research grants still given to oil and gas, the direct subsidies for nuclear, the publicly-funded roads that facilitate cars, or the national space programmes that eventually brought us the mobile phone.
The argument that this U-turn is about protecting consumers’ bills simply does not hold. Cuts to rooftop solar announced on Thursday will save just 0.9% off a yearly bill, by 2020.
Many of the alternatives the government is turning to are actually more expensive than renewables – Hinkley Point C would cost consumers twice the current wholesale price of electricity. And the single best thing that would cut bills – insulating homes – has seen just about all public support scrapped.
Strong wind power takes over New York’s electricity as nuclear station shut down
Wind Rescues New York Power After Nuclear Plant Shutdown Naureen Malik , Bloomberg, December 16, 2015 A nuclear reactor that supplies Manhattan unexpectedly went offline Monday night, though you wouldn’t know it to look at power prices.
The Indian Point 3 plant, 27 miles (43 kilometers) north of New York City, automatically shut down at 7 p.m. because of an electrical disturbance, owner Entergy Corp. said in an e-mailed statement late Monday. The last time that happened,spot power more than doubled. Tuesday, wind turbines in the state came to the rescue, running close to capacity and compensating for the loss of the reactor.
While renewables make up a small portion of U.S. generating capacity, wind and solar have subdued prices and at times curtailed the need for plants that rely on coal and natural gas. Meanwhile, Entergy is facing political and economic pressure as Governor Andrew Cuomo seeks to shut the plant while power prices in December head for the lowest monthly average on record.
Spot wholesale power for New York City fell $27.34, or 56 percent, to $21.33 per megawatt-hour in the hour ended at 1 p.m. compared with the same period Monday, according to grid data compiled by Bloomberg……..http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-15/wind-rescues-new-york-power-prices-after-nuclear-plant-shutdown
Battery storage for solar now a very big deal
This huge deal is the latest evidence that the battery revolution has arrived, WP By Chris Mooney December 15 At the Paris climate change conference earlier this month, all eyes were on some massive announcements in the solar and wind energy space — including plans in Africa to install 300 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity across the continent by the year 2030. A gigawatt is a billion watts — and this would be nearly double the electricity capacity that the continent currently supports.
Less noticed, however, is that a key enabling technology for solar — and for the future of clean energy — is also starting to grow: Energy storage. When solar systems are connected with batteries or other forms of storage, they can cease to be dependent upon whether the sun is shining and how strong its rays are at a given moment. Rather, solar energy can be stored and used at a later time. Including at night.
And now AES, a large energy company headquartered in Arlington, Va., has announced a very large deal in the battery space. It is gaining access to 1 gigawatt-hour worth of lithium ion batteries from Seoul-based LG Chem, a chemicals giant that also has a strong business in making lithium ion batteries for electric and hybrid electric vehicles. The batteries will be deployed in AES’s Advancion platform, which provides large scale grid energy storage to utility companies.
Power – in this case, a gigawatt – refers to the amount of electricity that can be discharged instantaneously. But when it comes to batteries, what’s also important is how long the battery can operate — its energy. Thus, 1 gigawatt hour would refer to the capacity to discharge that much power for one hour — but it could also refer to the ability to discharge 250 megawatts (or million watts) for four hours.
Either way, that’s a very large amount of batteries. For comparison, GTM Research recently forecast that the U.S. will deploy a record 192 megawatts of energy storage in 2015.
But for now, the biggest business for batteries isn’t in the home, where they can serve a backup role in the event of an outage or pair with a rooftop solar system; it’s on the grid, where there is a constant need to be able to manage shifting electricity demand at different times of the day. Batteries that can switch on automatically at key moments can provide a major grid service, which is why they’re seeing more and more demand.
Thus, AES is in effect packaging lots of batteries, provided by LG Chem, into large systems that large power companies can purchase and then install or integrate on the grid wherever they need this new capacity. AES directly advertises its batteries as the “complete alternative” to “peaking power plants.”
France sets up Europe’s biggest solar farm: it’s cheaper than nuclear power station
New French solar farm, Europe’s biggest, cheaper than new nuclear, Reuters, 1 Dec 15 CESTAS, FRANCE French energy group Neoen on Tuesday inaugurated a 300 megawatt (MW) solar farm, Europe’s biggest, which will produce power at a price below that of new nuclear plants.
Built on a 250-hectare site south of Bordeaux, the plant will provide power for 300,000 people and cost 360 million euros. It will sell power at 105 euros per megawatt-hour (MWh) for 20 years, well below the cost of power from new nuclear power reactors.
“We will deliver power at an extremely competitive price, similar to wind power, and at any rate cheaper than the cost of power from new nuclear plants,” Neoen Chief Executive Xavier Barbaro told reporters on Tuesday…….
Barbaro said the facility’s solar panels are not oriented toward the south, but on an east-west axis, which allows them to produce three to four times more power for the same surface area.
The east-west orientation also allows the panels to produce more power early in the morning and late in the afternoon, which corresponds more closely to French power demand patterns…..
Barbaro said Neoen’s Bordeaux solar plant shows that solar photovoltaic can be highly economical in terms of geographical footprint.
He also said while the solar panels are Chinese made, they make up only a minority part of the investment and that the main costs are related to construction, engineering, cabling and electrical equipment, for which there are many competitive French suppliers.
Neoen has said it aims to install 1,000 MW of capacity by 2017, about half in France.
(Reporting by Claude Canellas; writing by Geert De Clercq, editing by David Evans) http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/12/01/us-climatechange-summit-france-solar-idUSKBN0TK5GW20151201#e7rJbmSSCOht6lPU.97
We can get all our electricity from the sun: dispelling the myths from the nuclear lobby
Goodbye fossil fuels, goodbye nuclear. We can ‘Get it from the Sun’ – all of it!, Ecologist Keith Barnham
30th November 2015 New research shows that wind and solar can meet 80% of Germany’s power demand, with biogas and hydropower providing the balance, writes Keith Barnham. And if Germany can do it, so can other countries, many of them even more easily – with no need for fossil fuels or nuclear power. COP21 should raise its ambitions and commit to a 100% renewable electricity future, everywhere.
There is general agreement world-wide that an a 100% renewably powered world would be a desirable objective, and that the renewable technologies are particularly well suited to provide the energy needed in the countries most vulnerable to climate change.
There is also a clear scientific consensus that renewable electricity generators emit the lowest greenhouse gases: at least nine times less than the lowest fossil fuel generators and in some cases 40 times less.
There are, however, powerful lobbies that argue that the renewables are too unreliable; expanding too slowly; and too expensive to supply the world’s electricity needs. Without, that is, significant help from the technologies the lobbyists are paid to represent – be they fossil fuel or nuclear.
Here is the evidence, some of it new and unexpected, that the lobbyists’ arguments at a variance with the realities. Two projects in Germany, under the collective name of Komikraftwerk (combined-power plant) have clearly demonstrated that the reliability objection is a myth. Continue reading
France to spend billions on African renewable energy projects
COP21: France to spend billions on African renewable energy projects Guardian, 1 Dec 15
François Hollande tells Paris climate summit that his government will double investments in wind, solar and hydropower to €2bn France plans to spend billions of euros in renewable energy and other environmental projects in its former west African colonies and across Africa over the next five years, President François Hollande said on Tuesday.
Africa produces little of the greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, produced by burning fossil fuels, linked by scientists to rapid climate change. But it is particularly vulnerable to a changing climate, as much of its population is poor, rural and dependent on rain-fed agriculture.
Hollande told a conference on Africa, held as part of climate change talks in Paris, that his government would double investments in renewable energy generation, ranging from wind farms to solar power and hydroelectric projects, across the continent to €2bn between 2016 and 2020……..
African leaders want the biggest polluting nations to commit to financing as part of contributions to an internationally administered Green Climate Fund, that hopes to dispense $100bn a year after 2020 as a way to finance the developing world’s shift towards renewables. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/01/cop21-france-to-spend-billions-on-african-renewable-energy-projects
Only politics stands in the way of a renewable energy powered world – new report
The World Could Run Entirely On Wind, Solar, And Hydro Power By 2050 http://www.fastcoexist.com/3053676/the-world-could-run-entirely-on-wind-solar-and-hydro-power-by-2050
We can fully get rid of fossil fuels quickly, if countries can just find the political will.
In a few decades, the world could be powered by nothing but wind, water, and sunlight. That’s the conclusion of a new study released just before world leaders head to Paris to strike a climate deal. “These are basically plans showing it’s technically and economically feasible to change the energy infrastructure of all of these different countries,” says Mark Z. Jacobson, director of the Atmosphere/Energy Program at Stanford University, who worked with University of California colleagues to analyze energy roadmaps for 139 countries [on original]
The researchers crunched numbers to see how much energy each country would need by 2050—including electricity, transportation, heating and cooling, industry, and agriculture—and then calculated how renewable energy could cover those needs, where it could go, and how much it would cost.
“People who are trying to prevent this change would argue that it’s too expensive, or there’s just not enough power, or they try to say that it’s unreliable, that it will take too much land area or resources,” Jacobson says. “What this shows is that all these claims are mythical.”
Renewable energy is already cheap and will get cheaper. Even now, Jacobson says, wind is the cheapest electricity in the U.S., costing just 3.5 cents a kilowatt-hour (unsubsidized) compared to 6 to 8 cents for natural gas. That’s not including health and climate benefits: The study estimates that shifting infrastructure would save 4 to 7 million lives a year of people who would have died from air pollution—deaths that cost the world around 3% of the global GDP.
Shifting to renewables would create 20 million more jobs than those lost in the fossil fuel industry. Energy prices would stabilize, since renewables don’t use a commodity fuel. Decentralizing power would reduce the risk of both terrorism at power plants and outages from storms. Countries could become energy independent, eliminating a major cause of global conflict. Four billion people who don’t have reliable (or, in some cases, any) access to energy today would have power.
The study lays out a timeline of how the shift could happen. By 2020, countries would stop building new coal, natural gas, or nuclear plants (or biomass, which the researchers don’t consider a good alternative). New home appliances like stoves and heaters would be electric, not gas. By 2025, new cargo ships, trains, and buses would be electrified. Cars and trucks would get there by 2030. Eventually, by 2050, the transition would be complete.
It sounds simpler than we’ve led to believe. And that’s because the catch, of course, is political: Countries will have to decide to make the shift. If they do, though, it could actually work.
Obama backs community solar power as rooftop energy alternative
White House pushes community solar power as rooftop
alternative Gregory Korte, USA TODAY, 19 Nov 15 WASHINGTON — About half of electric customers can’t 
install solar panels because they don’t own their building, don’t get enough sun or don’t have a large, south-facing roof to install solar panels, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.Those technical challenges are a particular hurdle for low- and middle-income customers — and that’s why the Obama administration is pushing a solution known as community solar.
The White House hosted a summit Tuesday to bring together major solar players to figure out ways to expand retail solar power from traditional rooftop arrays to a model in which households and businesses invest in shared solar systems. The administration announced that 68 cities, states, and businesses had signed on to a White House initiative to promote community solar, with an emphasis on low- and moderate-income households.
Those commitments are expected to bring solar power to to more than 20,000 households in 21 states, the White House said. And, just as importantly for President Obama, it will allow the United States to expand its use of clean energy as Obama prepares to travel to Paris for an international climate summit where he’ll press other companies to make similar strides to reduce carbon pollution from fossil fuels…….
Another participant, Michelle Moore of the nonprofit Groundswell, works as a community organizer to try to create markets for community solar power in places where it doesn’t yet exist. She said the White House summit was helpful in bringing for-profit utilities, cooperatives, local governments, non-profits and financiers together to make connections.
“Our role is organizing customers so that they’re able to have more of a say in what kind of energy they want and how they want to buy it,” said Moore, a former environment policymaker at Obama’s White House Council on Environmental Quality. “It’s a way to buy into a solar project without a home construction project.” http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/11/17/white-house-pushes-community-solar-power-rooftop-alternative/75950054/
Investment Bank Lazar finds wind and solar beat coal and nuclear on costs
Wind and solar beating conventional fuels on costs – Lazard, REneweconomy, By Giles Parkinson on 18 November 2015 The latest study by US investment bank Lazard has highlighted the extent to which wind and solar technologies are beating conventional fuels – coal, gas and nuclear – on costs of production, and also on abatement.
The study, the “Levellised Cost of Energy Analysis 9.0 notes that utility scale solar PV has fallen 25 per cent in the last year alone, since its most recent study. Since 2009, when it began the analysis, solar and wind energy have fallen by 80 per cent and 60 per cent respectively.
Lazard says that because of this, and despite big falls in the cost of natural gas in the US, wind and solar are beating conventional fuels in most situations, as revealed in their success in competitive capacity auctions.
And so, to its graphs [on original]
………It is interesting to note that compared to Lazard’s previous reports, wind, solar and gas costs have fallen, coal has remained static, while nuclear is the only technology to show a significant increase……http://reneweconomy.com.au/2015/wind-and-solar-beating-conventional-fuels-on-costs-lazard-26273
World’ slar road first solar road performing better than expected
World’s First Solar Road Exceeds Expectations http://www.enn.com/business/article/49158 By Candice Marcus The first aptly-titled SolaRoad made its debut last November in the Netherlands, not far from Amsterdam. The road itself is a unique foray in pollution-free solar energy. Nearly one year later, the SolaRoad’s designers say the high-tech bike path is performing better than they expected.
In the first six months since it was installed, the SolaRoad has generated over 3,000 kilowatt-hours — or roughly the equivalent required for a single-person household for one calendar year.
Experts reckon that up to 20 percent of the Netherlands’ roadways —140,000 kilometers or 87,000 miles — could accommodate the solar threading for a wider reach on a limitless solar draw.
How it works
The SolaRoad is a unique platform just 70 meters long — for now — that consists of several synthetic layers topped by 3-millimeter, glass-covered solar panels engineered to convert sunrays into energy — even on a perfectly cloudy day. Each transparent panel links into a network that optimizes absorbed solar radiation and redirects it into the local energy grid — to power street lamps, for example.
Continue reading at ENN affiliate, Triple Pundit.
Mayor of London calls on UK govt for tax help for local community solar power
Boris Johnson: Treasury is endangering community renewables, Guardian, Adam Vaughan, 12 Nov 15
Mayor of London calls on the government to reconsider plans to remove tax relief for investors in community energy projects Boris Johnson has warned the Treasury it is endangering efforts by local communities around the UK to build their own renewable energy projects.
In a letter to the financial secretary to the Treasury, David Gauke, the mayor of London and Tory MP called on the government to reconsider its proposals to remove various forms of tax relief for investors in community energy.
More than 100 green energy groups have already said the change will “decimate” the sector, which has installed community-owned solar panels on village halls, small hydro schemes on rivers and wind turbines on farms.
Johnson is concerned that “the proposals may endanger the expansion of the sector given the investment required for the upfront capital costs” and “there is a danger of unintended consequences”, wrote the deputy mayor for environment and energy, Matthew Pencharz.
The mayor also thought that while such schemes might be small individually, in aggregate they are important to the security of London’s future energy supply, and a key part of efforts to cut the capital’s carbon emissions.
The short-term nature of the tax changes – which are due to come into effect at the end of November – could also put an end to schemes that are already in development or fundraising, he said.
One high-profile scheme for a community-owned solar array in a West Sussex village that was at the centre of anti-fracking protests, has already been shelvedas a result of the Treasury’s plans, announced in the finance bill last month. A recent report found more than £100m worth of community energy projects were at risk from the changes…….http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/nov/11/boris-johnson-treasury-is-endangering-community-renewables
Iran going for renewable energy
Iran signs landmark $6 billion power deal, Press TV, 4 Nov 15 The Iranian government says it has signed an agreement worth $6 billion with a European company to build 4,250 megawatts of power capacity in the country.
The agreement between Iran’s Ministry of Energy and the foreign firm envisages developing gas-powered plants for 3,250 MW and wind farms for 1,000 MW of electricity, Government spokesman Mohammad Baqer Nobakht said.
“This big investment will be made in the current year (ending on March 20, 2016) under the existing political conditions where the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and the lifting of sanctions has not started yet,” he said……..
Renewable projects
The government is eyeing renewables as the new alternative to fossil fuels which constitute about 90% of Iran’s energy mix.
The existing renewable capacity is focused on hydro power plants which produce about 8,500 MW. Just 150 megawatts of green power plants are currently operating in the country.
The government plans to install 5,000 MW of renewable capacity, putting Iran among the likes of the UK and France in this category. The Ministry of Energy is already implementing 500 MW wind converters and further 100 MW biomass projects.
The Middle East’s first geothermal power plant, a 50-megawatt pilot project, is being built at the foot of an inactive volcanic peak in northwest Meshguin Shahr.
However, Iran’s renewable energy potential is huge where only the wind capacity is estimated at 30,000 megawatts.
Foreign projects
German companies are reportedly about to begin next year building wind farms in Iran at a cost of $331 million. In August, they signed a document for generation of 100 MW of wind power plus 400 MW of solar in the southern Khuzestan province.
Italy’s Fata, the engineering unit of leading industrial group Finmeccanica, also signed then a 500 million euro ($543 million) contract with Ghadir Investment Company to build a power plant in Iran.
A consortium of Iranian, Indian and South Korean companies further seeks to set up an energy park in the Khuzestan province in a project worth $10 billion, including generation of 1,000 megawatts of solar power. http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2015/11/04/436250/Iran-electricity-investment-Europe-renewables
Germany’s dash for renewables has helped to create new industries
Germany’s planned nuclear switch-off drives energy innovation, Guardian, Jennifer Rankin , 3 Nov 15
While Britain visualises a nuclear future, Angela Merkel’s aim of replacing it with renewables by 2022 is well under way Hinkley Point will be the first nuclear power plant to be built in Europe since the meltdown of Japan’s Fukushima reactor in 2011. But while the British government sees nuclear energy as a safe and reliable source of power, Germany is going in a different direction.
As a result of the Fukushima, Chancellor Angela Merkel pledged to switch off all nuclear power by 2022 and fill the gap with renewables – a process known as theenergiewende (energy transition).
Germany’s push for renewables grew out of the anti-nuclear protests of the 1980s and currently more than a quarter (26%) of its electricity comes from wind, solar and other renewable sources, such as biomass, although 44% is from coal. The country’s government wants to increase the share of renewables in electricity to 40% to 45% by 2025.
No other country of Germany’s size has attempted such a radical shift in its power supply in such a short space of time. Described by Merkel as a herculean task, the transition is Germany’s most ambitious economic project since die Wende – the phrase used to describe the fall of the Berlin wall and subsequent reunification of east and west – with an estimated cost of €1tn (£742bn) over the next two decades.
However, Reinhard Bütikofer, the Green party’s spokesman for industry in the European parliament, said the really “mind-blowing” energy transition is happening in the UK, where the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant in Somerset will cost electricity customers at least £4.4bn in subsidies. “They are cutting down on solar, PV [photovoltaics], purportedly for cost reasons, while on the other hand they pledge to guarantee the nuclear industry and energy price twice the market price for the next 30 years. That’s crazy.”
The energiewende is not uncontroversial, not least due to the rising cost of subsidies paid by ordinary bill payers, which has triggered complaints that poor households are subsidising affluent dentists to put solar panels on their roofs. But the transition is not opposed by Germany’s main business lobby, the BDI, despite lingering concerns about what the transition means for the country’s manufacturing base at a time when confidence in the Made in Germany brand has been knocked by the Volkswagen scandal.
“There is broad consensus in society on the political targets – to reduce CO2 and increase energy efficiency and the share of renewables,” said Carsten Rolle, the BDI’s head of energy and climate policy………
Germany’s dash for renewables has helped to create new industries. About 370,000 Germans work in the renewable energy industry, twice the number who work in fossil fuels, according to the Heinrich Böll Foundation, a green political thinktank.
The north German port city of Bremerhaven has staged a partial revival, after decades of decline following the collapse of the shipbuilding and fishing industries in the 1970s and 1980s……..
Bütikofer said it was a myth that the push to renewables was putting German companies out of business.
“The industrial Mittelstand has always persevered, moved ahead of the curve by being more effective than others,” he said. He believed that from damaging firms, the energy law can stimulate energy efficiency. “[The energiewende] is nudging sectors of German industry towards more ambitious innovation and I think that is the name of the game for future competitiveness.” http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/nov/02/germanys-planned-nuclear-switch-off-drives-energy-innovation
Today’s renewable energy headlines
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Visual Capitalist (blog) – 8 hours ago
According to the Renewable Energy Policy Network, about 22.1% of the world’s energy needs are satisfied by renewable energy. Hydro power accounts for most of this (16.4%) and the remainder (5.7%) comes from solar, wind, biomass, and other renewable …
CleanTechnica – 10 hours ago
The first era, starting in the 1990s, was characterized by deregulation, the creation of renewable energy certificates (RECs), and the development of the renewable portfolio standard (RPS). During this time period, renewable energy was purchased …
Full Fact – 7 hours ago
“We have a 20% renewables target overall across all energy, which translates into a 30% target forrenewable electricity and, I believe, there is a 12% renewable heat target, and therefore a 10%renewables target. There is no breakdown of those targets …
CleanTechnica – Nov 2, 2015
As Jordan looks to rapidly expand the renewable energy infrastructure, it is also taking measures to ensure that its transmission grid is ready for the boom in renewable energy generation. The French and Jordanian Prime Ministers recently signed an …
The Rock River Times – 1 hour ago
Our energy interests were influenced by Amory Lovins, an early advocate of energy efficiency andrenewable energy, the energy efficiency program in Osage, Iowa, visits to the solar business district in Soldiers Grove, Wisconsin, and off-grid PV powered …
Ghana Business News – 8 hours ago
Dr. Donkor said the price of solar energy in countries such as the United Arab Emirates, South Africa, Brazil and Uganda, is far below the price of electricity generated from conventional sources and government’s intent therefore, is to increase the …
Ghana Broadcasting Corporation – 4 hours ago
The three- day fair is being held at a time the country is in an energy crisis and all energy sources are being tapped to help address the situation. Opening it, the Minister of Power, Dr. Kwabena Donkor, said though renewable energy is contributing to …
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The International Energy Agency recognises the rapid growth in renewable energy
Even The Most Conservative Estimates For Renewables Show Huge Growth Is Coming http://www.fastcoexist.com/3052104/even-the-most-conservative-estimates-for-renewables-show-huge-growth-is-coming
The next decade will mark a massive rise in non-fossil fuel sources of energy. The International Energy Agency has a reputation for downplaying the importance of solar and wind power. So, when it says in its latest report that renewables could account for more than a quarter of generation by 2020, it’s probably good news. There’s a good chance the estimate could be under-cooked.
The IEA says the “effect of the lower oil price environment on global renewable power deployment is more perception than reality,” and that renewables will account for two-thirds of new energy generation by the end of the decade. Half of that comes from sources other than hydropower, including wind and solar, which have been falling rapidly in price. Globally, the cost of new utility-scale solar dropped two-thirds between 2010 and 2015, for example.
“The renewable share of generation rises from 22% in 2013 to over 26% in 2020 and renewable generation reaches a level more than today’s total combined demand of China, India and Brazil,” the report says. “China alone accounts for 40% of global renewable capacity growth, an amount triple the current total power capacity of the United Kingdom.” Meanwhile, some Sub-Saharan Africa countries are “poised to leapfrog to an economic development paradigm based on affordable renewables.”
Still, the IEA expects growth to slow in Europe and Japan, due to “persistent policy and market integration uncertainties.” Which is a possibility, of course—though hardly an optimistic reading of current trends. The IEA itself says that high levels of government incentives are “no longer necessary” for solar and onshore wind: that would suggest policy uncertainties, if they exist, may not be so important.
As shown by another recent study, the IEA has consistently gone low in its projections. For instance, its 2015 solar forecast was only one third of the real figure, while its 2030 wind forecast was achieved in 2010. “The [IEA World Energy Outlook] reports assume linear growth, whereas history shows an exponential growth for the new renewable energy technologies,” the paper says. In other words, the IEA draws straight-lines on a graph without considering technological advances or the compounding effect of investment and lower prices (see more here).
The projections matter because the IEA influences investment. If people see that renewables aren’t going to be the main thing, they’re more likely to put their money elsewhere.
To be fair, the IEA does allow that its projections might be off in its latest report. If governments closed the “oldest and most polluting power plants” (as the Obama Administration proposes) and developing countries work to reduce their energy financing costs, then the boom could be that much boomier. “Driven by a stronger embrace of the energy security, local pollution, and climate benefits, cumulative renewable power growth over 2014-20 could be 25% higher than in the main case forecast,” the paper says. Maybe the IEA realizes it’s been pessimistic about renewables for too long.
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