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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

“They just fit in with what we do:” Australian farmers reap rewards as they play host to wind and solar

ReNewEconomy Liv Casben, Jun 29, 2024

Renewables in agriculture are gaining momentum across the nation as Australia pushes to reach its net-zero emissions target by 2050.

Australia’s energy market operator has declared renewables as the most cost-effective way of reaching net-zero targets in the grid, but just how much of the load will be carried by the farming sector remains unclear.

Across pockets of the nation, farmers are already doing their bit to reduce their carbon footprint.

“Anecdotally, we have seen a huge increase in farmers seeking renewables projects as farmers seek to increase the productivity of their farms,” Farmers for Climate Action’s Natalie Collard told AAP.

“Renewables offer drought-proof income, and drought-proof income keeps farms going through the toughest of times.”

The Lee family has farmed at Glenrowan West for 150 years, but for the past three years they’ve also added solar to the mix.

A German-based company leases the land from the Lees and maintains the solar panels, which run alongside the sheep farming operation.

“The lessee basically runs it just as another paddock, the sheep go in just as they would under any other farming operation,” Gayle Lee said. “We haven’t found there to be any noticeable loss of production.”

……………………………………………………. Karin Stark, who will host the annual Renewables in Agriculture conference in Toowoomba next week, says consultation is key to farmers playing a “critical role” in the renewables transition and keeping everyone happy…………… more https://reneweconomy.com.au/they-just-fit-in-with-what-we-do-farmers-reap-rewards-as-they-play-host-to-wind-and-solar/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR0qML5s3XgsQ3EZd5pJl15CdGXQ60-BC3TLkIVpcaWkgLsBSarHkHoPUYI_aem_OC5kzgz0cTiwWtnLVva56A

July 3, 2024 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, renewable | Leave a comment

Why we are heading for a globally connected electricity system based on renewable energy

renewable globalism is coming, so home-sited renewables are needed to protect British energy security

DAVID TOKE, JUN 21, 2024,  https://davidtoke.substack.com/p/why-we-are-heading-for-a-globally

Slowly but surely the world is creeping towards global interconnection. That could make a global 100 per cent renewable energy system work a lot better. There would be reductions in the amount of storage needed and consequent reductions in cost. That is what academics are saying, including work done by electrical engineers based at the University of Birmingham (UK). Put simply, different parts of the world could power each other at different times of the day and night.

Solar power will become the dominant energy source. As Professor Christian Breyer says: ‘yes, solar & battery will be the central backbone of global energy supply, even more so in the sunbelt where two-third of world population live’. ‘Globalism’ will rule the electricity delivery system. Globalism already exists in the form of the international oil, and increasingly, natural gas industry. However, now with the development of HVDC transmission systems which minimise grid-based power losses, electricity can be transported efficiently over very great distances.

But the incremental march of international electricity interconnections is gradually pushing us in the direction of a global electricity system. It is happening incrementally. A new globalism based on renewable energy has great advantages, according to academics who have modelled the concept.

Of course, we should strive for energy security in the UK. This means wind power especially in the UK, supplemented by as much solar power as we can generate. Other renewable energy resources are potentially substantial in the UK. This includes geothermal energy, tidal stream energy and wave power, all of which are in greater or lesser stages of development. Of course the more renewables are deployed in the UK, the more we shall be able to profit from international trading in renewable energy.

As I say in my recently published book ‘Energy Revolutions’ (pages 36-37):

‘One interesting approach is to imagine providing 100 per cent of energy from renewables in the context of a globally interconnected electricity system. This would have the advantage of connecting areas where it is daytime with areas where it is night, as well as more and less windy zones. In recent decades, new engineering solutions for interconnection involving high-voltage direct current have emerged. These allow the possibility of (economically) transmitting electricity across thousands of miles while minimising electricity losses. A group of researchers has modelled the possibilities for a global system to provide 100%RE. They concluded that, compared to systems that are not globally interconnected, a globally interconnected system would reduce storage costs for 100%RE by 50 per cent and reduce the costs by 20 per cent.’

Incremental progress towards global interconnection is happening. I’m not necessarily talking about much-publicised plans to connect up the UK directly with solar pv from North Africa – that may or may not happen in some form or other sometime in the future – and perhaps never at all in a direct sense. Really, discussion of plans like that trivialises discussion about increasing international links in electricity supply.

What I am rather talking about, for the moment are the plans, which have begun to be implemented, to connect up North Africa and with southern Europe. Developments like that could lead to greater linkage of British electricity systems. On the one hand, British international electricity interconnection with the continent of Europe is expanding and on the other hand, African interconnection with European states is also occurring. But this will be indirect, rather than direct, connections between the UK and Africa.

The latest incremental change in the progress towards completion of the interconnector between Crete and Attica. Meanwhile, the European Commission is offering financial backing to interconnector projects between Italy and Tunisia, one between Egypt and Greece, and another between Greece, Cyprus and Israel. This programme runs parallel with the European Commission target that member states should have interconnections worth at least 15 per cent of their national electricity consumption by 2015.

The UK, if anything, is expanding rather faster than this, with the bulk of our current (9.8 GW) of international interconnector capacity having been commissioned since 2010. According to OFGEM new international interconnectors are set to increase this capacity by over 50 per cent by 2030. These are all projects with our neighbours: Norway, Ireland, Denmark, France, Germany and Belgium.

Of course we are still some way off having a globally interconnected system. However the spread of renewable energy which is building up to an astonishingly rapid rate is turbocharging the growth of interconnectors. This is because the variable nature of renewable energy encourages greater interconnection.

Globalism is slowly happening in electricity interconnection, perhaps not through dramatic direct projects, but gradually. Britain has a stake in this in that it can export renewable energy production, thus reducing excess renewable energy production. We should continue our practice of issuing fixed price contracts for renewable energy to enure that UK consumers get a good deal. But a global system of interconnection will reduce the need to store so much energy because it can import excess renewable energy from other places – perhaps places which are thousands of miles away.

June 22, 2024 Posted by | renewable | Leave a comment

Surging Renewables Push French Energy Prices Negative, Shutting Down Nuclear Plants

by Rahul Kumar, June 15, 2024, in Business and Finance,  https://theubj.com/business/surging-renewables-push-french-energy-prices-negative-shutting-down-nuclear-plants/

French energy prices recently plunged into negative territory, reaching a four-year low of -€5.76 per megawatt-hour in an Epex Spot auction, Bloomberg reported. This unusual occurrence was driven by an excess of renewable energy production combined with reduced demand, particularly over the weekend. The surplus in renewable power led to some French nuclear plants going offline.

Renewable Energy Surge and Market Impact

The drop in day-ahead energy prices underscores the profound impact that renewable energy, particularly wind and solar power, is having on the European energy market. As renewable energy production surged, especially during periods of low demand, it created an oversupply that forced prices down. This imbalance pressured Electricité de France (EDF), the state-owned utility company, to temporarily shut down several nuclear reactors to avoid generating excess power that could not be sold profitably. Initially, three nuclear plants were halted, with plans to take three more offline.

A Pan-European Issue

This phenomenon is not isolated to France. Other European countries, including Spain and those in the Scandinavian region, also experience similar shutdowns of nuclear reactors due to excess renewable energy generation. The continent’s push to decarbonize energy grids has accelerated the deployment of renewable infrastructure. However, the lack of adequate battery technology and investment to store surplus energy has created pricing inefficiencies, leading to occurrences of negative prices.

Germany’s Experience

Germany, a leader in renewable energy adoption, has also faced negative energy prices. SEB Research reported in May that solar power generation in Germany had outpaced demand, leading to similar pricing challenges. Despite these issues, Germany has been more aggressive in its rollout of renewable energy compared to France. This aggressive approach has helped Germany mitigate some of the market inefficiencies seen in France.

France’s Renewable Energy Rollout

In contrast, France’s rollout of renewable energy has been slower. Paris has installed around 45 gigawatts of wind and solar capacity, which is behind the targets set by the European Commission. The slower adoption rate has contributed to the country’s struggle to balance its energy supply and demand efficiently.

Political and Economic Implications

The political landscape in France could further impact the renewable energy sector. The far-right National Rally party, which is poised to make significant gains in upcoming domestic elections, has pledged to slash renewable subsidies and halt the expansion of the wind power industry. Such political developments could slow down the already modest pace of France’s renewable energy rollout, potentially leading to more significant market inefficiencies and continued reliance on traditional energy sources.

Broader Challenges

The situation in France highlights the broader challenges associated with transitioning to renewable energy. While the shift towards cleaner energy is essential for reducing carbon emissions and combating climate change, it also necessitates advancements in energy storage solutions and a more balanced energy mix to ensure market stability and efficiency. Without these advancements, countries may continue to experience negative pricing and the associated operational challenges.

Conclusion

The recent plunge into negative energy prices in France due to an oversupply of renewable energy underscores the complex dynamics of the modern energy market. As Europe continues to push towards decarbonization, the need for robust energy storage solutions and strategic market management becomes increasingly critical. The experiences of France and other European countries serve as a reminder of the growing pains associated with the global shift towards sustainable energy.

June 17, 2024 Posted by | EUROPE, renewable | Leave a comment

Farmers who graze sheep under solar panels say it improves productivity. So why don’t we do it more?

Guardian, by Aston Brown, 14 June 24

Allowing livestock to graze under renewable developments gives farmers a separate income stream, but solar developers have been slow to catch on.As a flock of about 2,000 sheep graze between rows of solar panels, grazier Tony Inder wonders what all the fuss is about. “I’m not going to suggest it’s everyone’s cup of tea,” he says. “But as far as sheep grazing goes, solar is really good.”

Inder is talking about concerns over the encroachment of prime agricultural land by ever-expanding solar and windfarms, a well-trodden talking point for the loudest opponents to Australia’s energy transition.

But on Inder’s New South Wales property, a solar farm has increased wool production. It is a symbiotic relationship that the director of the National Renewables in Agriculture Conference, Karin Stark, wants to see replicated across as many solar farms as possible as Australia’s energy grid transitions away from fossil fuels.

“It’s all about farm diversification,” Stark says. “At the moment a lot of us farmers are reliant on when it’s going to rain, having solar and wind provides this secondary income.”

In exchange, the panels provide shelter for the sheep, encourage healthier pasture growth under the shade of the panels and create “drip lines” from condensation rolling off the face of the panels.

“We had strips of green grass right through the drought,” Dubbo sheep grazier Tom Warren says. Warren has seen a 15% rise in wool production due to a solar farm installed on his property more than seven years ago.

Despite these success stories, a 2023 Agrivoltaic Resource Centre report authored by Stark found that solar grazing is under utilised in Australia because developers, despite saying they intend to host livestock, make few planning adjustments to ensure that happens……………………………………………………………………………….

According to an analysis by the Clean Energy Council, less than 0.027% of land used for agriculture production would be needed to power the east coast states with solar projects – far less than the one-third of all prime agricultural land that the rightwing thinktank the Institute of Public Affairs has claimed will be “taken over” by renewables. That argument, which has been heavily refuted by experts, has been taken up by the National party, whose leader, David Littleproud, said regional Australia had reached saturation point with renewable energy developments.

Queensland grazier and the chair of the Future Farmers Network, Caitlin McConnel, has sold electricity to the grid from a dozen custom-built solar arrays on her farm’s cattle pastures for more than a decade.

“Trial and error” and years of modifications have made them structurally sound around cattle and financially viable in the long-term, she says.

“As far as I know, we are the only farm to do solar with cattle,” McConnel says. “It’s good land, so why would we just lock it up just for solar panels?”  https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/jun/13/farmers-who-graze-sheep-under-solar-panels-say-it-improves-productivity-so-why-dont-we-do-it-more

June 15, 2024 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, renewable | Leave a comment

A global review of Battery Storage: the fastest growing clean energy technology today

 Energy Post 27th May 2024 by IEA

The IEA report “Batteries and Secure Energy Transitions” looks at the impressive global progress, future projections, and risks for batteries across all applications. 2023 saw deployment in the power sector more than double. Strong growth occurred for utility-scale batteries, behind-the-meter, mini-grids, solar home systems, and EVs. Lithium-ion batteries dominate overwhelmingly due to continued cost reductions and performance improvements. And policy support has succeeded in boosting deployment in many markets (including Africa).

Further innovations in battery chemistries and manufacturing are projected to reduce global average lithium-ion battery costs by a further 40% by 2030 and bring sodium-ion batteries to the market. The IEA emphasises the vital role batteries play in supporting other clean technologies, notably in balancing intermittent wind and solar.

New successes include the fact that solar PV plus batteries is now competitive with new coal-fired power in India and, in the next couple years, should become competitive with new coal in China and new natural gas-fired power in the U.S. Looking ahead, deployment must increase sevenfold by 2030. The prospects are good: if all announced plants are built on time this would be sufficient to meet the battery requirements of the IEA’s net-zero scenario in 2030. And although, today, the supply chain for batteries is very concentrated, the fast-growing market should create new opportunities for diversifying those supply chains.


Batteries are an essential part of the global energy system today and the fastest growing energy technology on the market

Battery storage in the power sector was the fastest growing energy technology in 2023 that was commercially available, with deployment more than doubling year-on-year.

Strong growth occurred for utility-scale battery projects, behind-the-meter batteries, mini-grids and solar home systems for electricity access, adding a total of 42 GW of battery storage capacity globally. Electric vehicle (EV) battery deployment increased by 40% in 2023, with 14 million new electric cars, accounting for the vast majority of batteries used in the energy sector.

Despite the continuing use of lithium-ion batteries in billions of personal devices in the world, the energy sector now accounts for over 90% of annual lithium-ion battery demand. This is up from 50% for the energy sector in 2016, when the total lithium-ion battery market was 10-times smaller. With falling costs and improving performance, lithium-ion batteries have become a cornerstone of modern economies, underpinning the proliferation of personal electronic devices, including smart phones, as well the growth in the energy sector. In 2023, there were nearly 45 million EVs on the road – including cars, buses and trucks – and over 85 GW of battery storage in use in the power sector globally.

Lithium-ion batteries dominate battery use due to recent cost reductions and performance improvements…………………………………………………………….

more https://energypost.eu/a-global-review-of-battery-storage-the-fastest-growing-clean-energy-technology-today/

June 4, 2024 Posted by | renewable | Leave a comment

‘Offshore wind farms could have averted Fukushima disaster’

A global review led by the University of Surrey reveals that offshore wind farms could have prevented the Fukushima disaster and are now a cheaper energy alternative than nuclear power

Dimitris Mavrokefalidis, 05/30/2024 ,  https://www.energylivenews.com/2024/05/30/offshore-wind-farms-could-have-averted-fukushima-disaster/

A review conducted by researchers at the University of Surrey has concluded that offshore wind farms could have averted the Fukushima nuclear disaster by maintaining the cooling systems and preventing a meltdown.

The study highlights that wind farms are less vulnerable to earthquakes than nuclear power plants.

Suby Bhattacharya, Professor of Geomechanics at the University of Surrey, emphasised that wind power provides abundant clean energy and can enhance the safety and reliability of other facilities.

The review indicates that wind energy is now more cost-effective due to reduced construction costs and improved methods to minimise environmental impact.

The report finds that new wind farms can produce energy at a significantly lower cost than new nuclear power stations.

In the UK, the lifetime cost of generating wind power has dropped from £160/MWh to £44/MWh, covering all expenses from planning to decommissioning.

Professor Bhattacharya said: “What makes wind so attractive is that the fuel is free, and the cost of building turbines is falling. There is enough of it blowing around the world to power the planet 18 times over.

“Our report shows the industry is ironing out practical challenges and making this green power sustainable, too.”

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June 2, 2024 Posted by | Japan, renewable | Leave a comment

TODAY. Jobs jobs jobs in the nuclear industry – but is it true?

Go to Google news for nuclear information, and you’ll be swamped with glowing stories from the World Nuclear Association, the IAEA, and the big corporate media outlets – all about the wonderful future for the nuclear industry- –

all those jobs! including in the lovely nuclear weapons industry.

Jobs in renewable energy. This year’s report finds that renewable energy employment worldwide has continued to expand – to an estimated 13.7 million direct and indirect jobs in 2022. We can expect the creation of many millions of additional jobs in the coming years and decades.  https://mc-cd8320d4-36a1-40ac-83cc-3389-cdn-endpoint.azureedge.net/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/2023/Sep/IRENA_Renewable_energy_and_jobs_2023.pdf?rev=4f65518fb5f64c9fb78f6f60fe821bf2

Jobs in nuclear power. I have not been able to find any kind of authoritative report on global jobs in nuclear power. I did find one source (on Quora) stating that each nuclear reactor in construction provides 1400-1800 jobs, and in operation 400 -700 jobs. The nuclear industry claims many more, but for construction, we must remember – this is all in the rather distant future.

The figure below is a prediction from many years ago. If we are to believe the nuclear lobby, this prediction should change rapidly.

What we do know is that at present, renewable energy jobs are increasing exponentially, and nuclear power building is almost at a standstill.

The figure on the left is also from many years ago. But I doubt that much has changed.

Of course – this is all about the actual reactors. There are many jobs in uranium mining, milling, transport etc, and of course, in nuclear weapons-making

The quality of jobs.

In energy efficiency there are many interesting and clean jobs. Also, workers know that they are contributing to a healthier planet – something to be proud of.

In renewable energy the jobs are relatively clean and healthy, and there’s again, the knowledge of being in an alternative to the polluting industries – coal and nuclear.

In nuclear energy and nuclear fuel, the workers are involved in the risky area of ionising radiation. There’s a huge amount of documentation on this. It is NOT a healthy job, though I suppose that it’s better to be a highly paid nuclear executive or lobbyist, safe in a nice office.

I doubt that nuclear workers can get much satisfaction about “helping the planet”, as the “peaceful” nuclear industry is so dirty, dangerous, and intimately connected with nuclear weapons.

No doubt some nuclear workers get paid a lot more than renewable energy workers do. But, there’s real value in knowing that your contribution to society is a clean and positive one.

May 30, 2024 Posted by | Christina's notes, employment, renewable | Leave a comment

The (currently terrible) mood in renewables… is largely irrelevant

At some point people should realize that (i) investments have continued, (ii) the price increases that hit the sector have hit other sectors as well so do not really hurt its relative competitiveness, and (iii) it works…

JÉRÔME À PARIS, MAY 27, 2024,  https://jeromeaparis.substack.com/p/the-currently-terrible-mood-in-renewables (EXCELLENT GRAPHS)

The past year has seen both a terrible political backlash against renewables (and climate policies more generally) and a relentlessly negative mood music about the sector, making it sound like nobody is investing in the sector, even though the industry keeps on breaking records.

It’s been difficult to write anything mildly positive or just sensible about activity in the sector when it risks simply being drowned out by these negative perceptions and ignored.

The negative context has been driven by headlines focused on the offshore wind sector (some projects abandoned or delayed in the US, the UK “round 5” auction getting no bidders) and generated by high profile decisions, mostly by oil&gas players, to reduce their exposure to the sector and do so rather noisily. This has naturally been seized upon with glee, and amplified, by opponents to the sector, who remain active, if slightly more subtle than in the past.

It has had some really effects, in particular in my small corner of the market (early development for offshore wind, in particular floating offshore wind), where investors have become a lot more prudent and mostly adopted a ”wait and see” attitude to new projects and markets rather than the enthusiastic “must have” rush of a few years ago.

So, just last week, you could still read headlines like “European utilities cut renewable targets as high costs and low power prices bite” that make it sound like investment is really slowing down… when it really isn’t, and prices are getting worse, when they aren’t…

So what explains the discrepancy?

At some point people should realize that (i) investments have continued, (ii) the price increases that hit the sector have hit other sectors as well so do not really hurt its relative competitiveness, and (iii) it works…

I’ve been thinking that it may just take a couple of eye-catching announcements (a new tender at lower than expected prices, a new high profile acquisition) to change the mood and suddenly switch everybody from “let’s wait” to “we need to do this” but I’m not so sure – we’ve had such announcements already (recent news about the tenders in France, Norway or Australia, for instance, or proposed acquisitions like OX2 by EQT) and they have been largely ignored outside of the industry.

But that last FT headline made me realize why – these positive stories did not come from the big players (oil&gas majors or the key publicly-traded utilities) and they are not, how shall we say, very click-bait-y… Complex stories, unknown parties, and it doesn’t bleed… Not headline material.

To me, the main story this year is actually that we are beginning to see our power systems completely taken over by renewables. In places like the UK (see above), California, Spain, and even Texas, or Germany, solar is now dominant for many hours each day. Even more interestingly, the availability of battery storage solutions is now extending the period of carbon-free, or at least carbon-light, electricity by several hours each day (and the growth of batteries is even more explosive than that of solar).

This is naturally happening first (i) in the places that have built quite a bit of solar, (ii) that have the relevant sunny climate, (iii) during the warmer season, and (iv) during the day. But the growth in solar penetration has been phenomenal in a lot of places, and such dominance of solar is soon going to extend from a few hours per day a few weeks per year in a handful of countries to most of the day (and night), a large fraction of the year, in a growing number of systems. At some point – and this is likely just a few years away, we’ll likely have to manage increasingly often the situation where there is more electricity available than demand, and prices crash to zero (or below). I’m actually not too worried about this “problem” – we are talking about having a really useful input (energy, in a highly usable form) available at a low price: I’m sure lots of ways, old and new, will be found to make use of that resource and turn it into something valuable in monetary terms when it’s in surplus… Storage is the most obvious one, but I’m sure there will lots of interruptible activities that will grow to take advantage of low prices with high flexibility.

But the consciousness of this is not percolating yet. There’s two reasons for that: (i) the system is not crashing, so journalists have no acute reason to talk about it (you’ll note that articles usually come when some production or penetration record is broken) and the transition is not that visible – or only to specialized professionals and geeks, and (ii) this is happening in a completely decentralized way – there is no “solar super-major”, or even headlines-worthy multi-billion mega-projects that politicians would want to brag about or the press or stock analysts could follow.

Which brings me back to the utilities and oil&gas majors. They are in fact playing an incredibly small role in the transition.

We are used to these mammoth companies that control everything – big power plants, large customer base, massive political influence and corresponding headlines, and they are largely absent from the new system. Oh sure, they have renewables arms that are quite large, which may even be the largest around in their country or area of activity, but they make up only a small part of the overall renewable generation. (It’s a bit hard to find data, but this WoodMacKenzie report from 2019 noted that the top 10 owners of solar plants only controlled 6.9% of worldwide installed capacity, while a Finergreen ranking from 2017 showed that in France, EDF was the market leader with just 4% of solar capacity).

So people actually like to talk about offshore wind, because it’s understandable – big multi-billion euro investments, giga-watt scale projects, large companies developing them – but offshore wind is actually a very small chunk of the energy transition, and will likely stay that way (however much I care about the sector myself!) even in Europe…

And even in offshore wind, the utilities are not that dominant, when competition is allowed. The recent Norwegian auction was won by parkwind and INGKA, the French one by Bay.Wa and elicio, the largest financings last year were managed by Northland Power, the biggest floating wind pipeline is probably owned by Bluefloat – all names familiar to industry players but probably not to the wider public (and not to the journalists in the mainstream business press, apparently, as they keep asking the likes of Shell, Ørsted or Iberdrola for their opinion)…

In other words, we are moving from a very centralized system, dominated by large fossil fuel plants (or big hydro and nukes where available), where supply had to adapt to demand, to a highly decentralized one, where demand will adapt to the increased availability of supply at times, in an increasingly diverse number of ways, and we’ll likely have substantial oversupply during the day – until new demand balances it out.

The grid will become used in very different ways – that transformation has been successfully happening in (relative) silence over the past 25 years and will continue.

What also seems likely is that there could be very little room in such a system for baseload production, which will need to deal with very low prices during the growing periods of solar surplus, and may soon not be needed even at night for large parts of the year – you don’t run “must run” plants 25% of the time. There is some level of constant demand from industry and a few vital other sectors, but it seems increasingly unlikely that large centralized plants will be more competitive over the year than a combination of renewables (dominated by solar), storage and some very little used flexible fossil fuel peaker plant capacity.

So, for power generation and the wider energy transition, unexpectedly maybe, small is and will be beautiful, even as the overall volumes are gigantic. For renewables, no headlines is probably a good thing (as most stories seem to be scary ones). And for offshore wind, a lack of “animal spirits” may be a pity, but the sector will remain a niche (very useful in some places) and a relative minnow compared to solar, onshore wind and, increasingly, storage.

May 29, 2024 Posted by | renewable | Leave a comment

Renewables and storage still cheapest option, nuclear too slow and costly in Australia – CSIRO

Giles Parkinson, May 22, 2024,  https://reneweconomy.com.au/renewables-and-storage-still-cheapest-option-nuclear-too-slow-and-costly-in-australia-csiro/

Australia’s main scientific body, the CSIRO, has reaffirmed its assessment that integrated renewable energy is by far the cheapest option for Australia, and that nuclear – be it large scale or small modular reactors – is too slow and too costly.

The CSIRO’s findings have been consistent since the first of its now annual GenCost reports was released under the then Coalition government in 2018. In fact the gap between renewables and nuclear has widened, despite the addition of integration and transmission costs to wind and solar, even with up to a 90 per cent renewable share.

Its draft report released late last year re-affirmed that nuclear – the chosen technology of new Coalition leader Peter Dutton and his energy spokesman Ted O’Brien, remained by far the costliest energy choice for Australia.

Dutton is digging in on nuclear, and amid furious attacks from right wing media and so-called think tanks, the Coalition has tried to discredit the CSIRO GenCost report, which is produced in conjunction with energy experts at the Australian Energy Market Operator.

The nuclear boosters were particularly frustrated by the CSIRO’s costings on SMR (small modular reactors), which was based on the NuScale project in the US, the only SMR in the western world to get close to construction, but which was abandoned because of soaring costs that caused its customers to withdraw their support.

The nuclear boosters, and the federal Coalition, want the CSIRO and AEMO to accept the cost forecasts from salesmen for SMR technologies that remain largely on the drawing board and which – unlike the failed NuScale project – have no real world verification.

The CSIRO has now released its final GenCost report, prepared in conjunction with AEMO, and which it describes as the most comprehensive assessment of generation costs ever produced in this country.

The CSIRO has bent over backwards to respond to the criticism from the nuclear lobby, and added an estimated cost in Australia for large scale nuclear. It says is not as pricy as SMR technology, but is still at least double the cost of integrated renewables, and wouldn’t be possible before 2040 even if a commitment was made now.

That’s important, because Australia is the midst of a renewable energy transition that aims for an 82 per cent renewable energy share by 2030. Climate science dictates that speed of emissions cuts is now critically important, and by 2040 the country should be at or close to 100 per cent renewables.

The addition of large scale nuclear was one of a number of changes to the GenCost report from its 2023 edition, including a return to calculations for solar thermal, a technology hoping for its own renaissance, the inclusion of spilled energy from wind and solar, and – in response to more feedback – including integration costs incurred before 2030.

It doesn’t change the picture that much. Wind and solar are still by far the cheapest, in 2023 and in 2030, even though an expected cost reduction for wind energy – whose prices spiked after the Covid pandemic and energy crisis – is now not expected to take much longer until the mid 2030s.

Solar costs, however, are still falling, and it’s important to note that renewable integration costs for 80 per cent renewables in 2030 are less than $100/MWh. Even assuming the money is spent now, before expected cost reductions, the cost for an 80 per cent wind and solar grid in 2023 is put at $120/MWh.

Compare that to the estimated costs for nuclear, which in terms of the political and public debate, are the most revealing, and just a little inconvenient for the Coalition, whose attacks on the CSIRO and AEMO ignore the fact that the same conclusions were reached under its own governance.

The final GenCost report highlights how the favoured technologies of the conservatives – be they nuclear, gas, gas with CCS and coal with CCS – are so much higher than solar and wind with firming. SMRs are four to six times the cost of integrated renewables, and the first projects are likely to be significantly higher.

Large scale nuclear is twice as expensive, again without considering the first of its kind costs which would be necessary in Australia, and without considering the considerable costs of added reserve capacity needed because the plants are so big.

It also does not take into account how nuclear, with its “always on” business model could fit into a future grid already dominated by renewables and needing flexible capacity to support it, not redundant baseload.

Even with the full integrated costs itemised for both the 2023 and the 2030 assessments, the difference is clear.

CSIRO says that its draft GenCost received more submissions than any previous edition, with most of the 45 submissions coming from individuals who support nuclear.

This is not surprising given that no one in the Australian energy industry is the slightest bit interested in the technology, because of its costs and the timelines. As US energy expert Amory Lovins wrote for Renew Economy this week, nuclear “has no place in Australia’s energy future. No one who understands energy markets would claim otherwise.”

Indeed, two of the most prominent public faces of the pro-nuclear campaign in Australia have been a school student and an emergency doctor from Ontario, who have both received remarkable amounts of publicity in mainstream media despite their lack of industry knowledge.

The CSIRO points out that the large scale nuclear costs are at best estimates, because there is no nuclear industry in Australia, and no regulatory framework. First of its kind developments are likely to be exorbitant, but even basing its estimates on the South Korea experience puts the costs of large scale nuclear at a multiple of renewables.

The nuclear lobby has been insistent that wind and solar costs need to factor in the integration costs of the technologies in the grid, including storage and transmission, so no doubt they will insist that the CSIRO now does the same with large scale nuclear.

It is not likely to be cheap. As CSIRO notes, large scale nuclear units normally ranges in size from 1 GW to 1.4 GW or more, far bigger than the biggest coal unit in Australia, which is 750 MW. That will require added reserve capacity of equivalent size in case of an unexpected outage or unplanned maintenance.

In the UK, the regulator estimated that the additional reserve capacity of the Hinkley C nuclear plant would be in the order of $12 billion, on top of the now blown out costs of up to $92 billion for that reactor.

The project that had promised to be “cooking turkeys” by 2017, looks to be a cooked turkey itself by the time it gets switched on in 2031.

Federal energy minister Chris Bowen said the GenCost report validated the Labor government’s focus on renewables, and underlined the risky nature of the Coalition’s “half-baked” goal of keeping ageing coal fired power plants operating until nuclear can be delivered in the 2040s.

“Were small modular nuclear reactors able to be up and running in Australia by 2030, which they aren’t, the ‘first of a kind’ scenario is a cost of between $294/MWh and $764/MWh,” Bowen said. “Meaning small modular nuclear reactors would be up to more than nine times more expensive than firmed large-scale wind and solar.

“We know that Australia has the best solar resources in the world, and today’s report shows large-scale solar alone is 8 per cent cheaper to build than a year ago,” he said.

“We know Australia doesn’t have that time (to wait for nuclear) – 24 coal plants announced their closure dates under the previous government, and 90% of Australia’s coal-fired power is forecast to close by 2035.”

Giles Parkinson

Giles Parkinson is founder and editor of Renew Economy, and is also the founder of One Step Off The Grid and founder/editor of the EV-focused The Driven. He is the co-host of the weekly Energy Insiders Podcast. Giles has been a journalist for more than 40 years and is a former business and deputy editor of the Australian Financial Review. You can find him on LinkedIn and on Twitter.

May 24, 2024 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, renewable | Leave a comment

Solar and wind generation will soon pass nuclear, hydro

In a new monthly column for pv magazine, the International Solar Energy Society (ISES) explains how solar and wind are dominating power plant construction.

MAY 20, 2024 INTERNATIONAL SOLAR ENERGY SOCIETY (ISES) Authors: Prof. Ricardo Rüther (UFSC), Prof. Andrew Blakers /ANU  https://www.pv-magazine.com/2024/05/20/solar-and-wind-generation-will-soon-pass-nuclear-and-hydro/

Our ISES pv magazine column in April showed that the fastest energy change in history is continuing. In 2023, solar and wind together constituted 80% of global net power capacity additions. Growth in power capacity is followed by growth in annual energy generation.

Over the past decade, global solar generation has grown ninefold to reach 1,500 TWh per year while wind generation has tripled to 2300 TWh per year (Figure 1 on original). This corresponds to compound growth rates of 22% and 11% per year respectively. In contrast, hydro, nuclear and coal generation had growth rates of about 1% per year, and gas 3%.

The solar growth rate of 22% per year is equivalent to doubling every 3 years. At this growth rate, solar generation will reach 100,000 TWh per year in 2042 which is enough to fully decarbonize the global economy.

Nuclear has a global average capacity factor of 74%, followed by coal (50% to 70%), combined cycle gas (40% to 60%), wind (30% to 60%), large hydro (30% to 50%), and solar photovoltaics (12% to 25%).

Despite its relatively low capacity factor, solar generation is tracking to surpass nuclear generation in 2026, wind in 2027, hydro in 2028, gas in 2030 and coal in 2032.

Solar and wind are strongly dominating powerplant construction, whereas construction of all other generation technologies is both small and stagnant. Coal, gas and nuclear could be mostly gone by mid-century once retirements outpace new construction.

The leading countries for per capita solar and wind generation are all in Europe, except Australia (Figure 2 on original). Also shown in Figure 2 is global per capita generation from hydro and nuclear. Combined generation from solar and wind in the leading countries is now fourfold larger than the global average generation from hydro and nuclear combined.

Australia is a global pathfinder because, unlike in Europe, it cannot share electricity across national boundaries to reduce the effects of variable weather and demand. Australia must go it alone. Australia is convincingly demonstrating that change can happen quickly with good policies. Over the period 2020 to 2030, fossil generation is falling from 75% to 18%, while solar and wind generation is rising from 19% to 75%.

Brazil and Chile are middle income pathfinder countries, with about 81% and 60% respectively of electricity generation coming from hydro, wind and solar. Pathfinder countries are driven by a desire to reduce both electricity prices and emissions. There are few serious concerns about future grid stability because there will be sufficient investment in storage, transmission, and demand management.

May 22, 2024 Posted by | renewable | 1 Comment

Energy Revolutions – time for a change

 https://renewextraweekly.blogspot.com/2024/05/energy-revolutions-time-for-change.html

In this uncompromisingly radical Pluto book entitled Energy Revolutions, with the graphic subtitle Profiteering versus democracy, Dr David Toke argues that the energy crisis is an inevitable result of an industry run by and for corporate profit. He says ‘energy policy was never meant to favour sustainability or energy security – for decades, it has been shaped by corporate interests while hampering renewable alternatives. Now we suffer the cascading consequences’. He says there is an urgent need to radically increase state intervention, including public ownership, and deploy ‘energy democracy’ for the public interest.     

However, he is not against market competition as such- it can speed change and help reduce costs. Thus, in his account of the early days of renewables, he says that, as a result of the adoption of Feed In Tariffs in the late 2000’s in Germany and elsewhere, markets were created that ‘meant that the wind and solar industries grew quickly. The costs of renewable energy plummeted, and today renewable energy is much cheaper than either fossil fuels or nuclear power. If things had been left as the anti-renewable incentive campaigners wanted, then of course the renewables industry would never have taken off. The world would be in a parlous position in terms of surviving the fossil fuel price spirals that we see in cycles (in both oil & natural gas price crises). Our ability to deal with the climate crisis would be almost destroyed’.

Toke though says that when markets are used to create monopolies, in pursuit of corporate profits and control, things go seriously awry- as we saw in 2022 and subsequently, with record profits being made by oil and gas companies. With energy prices escalating, Exxon made $55 bn, Shell $40 bn, Chevron $36.5 bn and Equinor $55 bn. Wind-fall taxes can claw back a tiny bit of this profiteering, but it is insignificant when you realise that, as Toke quotes an economist as saying ‘the oil and gas industry has delivered $2.8bn (£2.3bn) a day in pure profit for the last 50 years’.  What’s needed is system change.   

That of course is the familiar call of most radicals. Toke says, at present ‘the wealthy, who own the shares, get richer at the expense of ordinary people.’ In response, he says, while we can’t simply nationalise oil to solve this problem, since the compensation required would be huge, we can change the way the market works. Crucially, he says, ‘as the renewable energy revolution gathers pace, we need state intervention to ensure that the benefits of lower-cost green energy supplies go to the consumer & not the energy corporations’. In particular, ‘we need to extend government intervention & elements of state ownership of the retail energy supply sector to ensure that the consumer, not the big corporations, benefits from cheap renewable energy.’             

The focus on ‘retail supply’ is linked to a proposed decentral shift away from seeing consumers as passive to one in which consumers may also be energy producers (via PV) and/or may also take an active role in managing their energy use (via DSM). Toke also sees them playing more of a role in shaping the system via an expansion of democratic participation, enabled by local energy co-ops, municipal projects & nationalisation of some of the energy systems. He says that public ownership ‘has an important role in delivering services in parts of energy systems where competition is itself either impossible or inefficient. It may be especially relevant to the retail electricity supply sector’. He adds ‘bringing in retail energy supply into public ownership should be cheap for the state to achieve since the companies involved have few tangible assets.’ But, he also looks to boosting competition ‘by the establishment of state companies to develop renewable energy alongside existing private companies’. 

Some of this it may sound utopian or even naive, but Toke reminds us that the ‘alternative energy’ activists in the 1970s and 1980s ‘were seen as fringe oddballs by the energy mainstream. Today their vital role in developing niche renewable energy technologies and markets is airbrushed out of history since it contradicts the idea that big capitalism solves the big problems.’ Well yes, and now we live in a world in which renewables will soon dominate – supplying up to 100% of all global energy by 2050. However, as Toke says, it has to be done right. He provides us with, if not a blueprint of what to do, then at least a rough guide to the key political issues, with some very good insights on the situation in the UK, EU and USA.  For example, it is amazing how expensive PV cells are in the US and how far France is behind on renewables due to its obsession with, now failing, nuclear. 

In terms of technology choice, Toke backs most renewables strongly, though not all biomass, and seems convinced that domestic heat pumps are the best bet for using green power for home heating- whereas he says that green hydrogen, produced using renewable power,  ‘needs to be used only for essential purposes, for example for storing renewable energy or for some industrial purposes for which electricity is not desirable. It should not be squandered in the provision of heating or cooling services’. 

That’s now a common view: electric powered heat pumps are seen as much more efficient.  Even if it does seem odd to abandon gas boilers and the existing gas pipeline system, which some wanted to repurpose for zero carbon green hydrogen use. Of course, some wanted to use fossil-derived blue hydrogen, a very different and very dire thing. But Toke notes that ‘the German coalition was divided when it came to debating a heating law about phasing out gas boilers in existing buildings. As part of a compromise, municipal authorities have been given the task of making plans for heat networks to be powered by large-scale heat pumps’. Well yes, as Toke admits, large heat pumps are more efficient. Although, dare I say, Combined Heat and Power plants, feeding heat nets and heat stores, can be even better and can help with grid balancing. 

We can of course debate the pros and cons of each option and Toke takes us through some of the issues including, inevitably, nuclear, which he is clearly not fond of- not least since it is expensive and inflexible.  Although his assertion that ‘once the current spurt of labour-intensive industrialism peters out in China, their drive in building nuclear power will fade, leaving nuclear in decline’, is maybe a bit too optimistic. Overall through, pronouncements like this aside, this is a good book if you want to get to grips with some of the key political and economic issues facing renewable energy and green politics- in a fast changing world.  

May 13, 2024 Posted by | renewable, resources - print | Leave a comment

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