Extraordinarily cheap renewables

One of the places is to  be expected: Saudi Arabia.  Its solar resources are big—it's mostly desert and it straddles the Tropic of Cancer.  The other is much less likely, at first glance: New York State.

Some of the world’s top green energy players have tabled ultra-low bids under the second round of Saudi Arabia’s renewable energy programme, set to contract a 1.47GW all in all.

The kingdom's Renewable Energy Project Development Office (REPDO) recently identified the firms and consortia shortlisted to develop a slew of solar projects across the country, with some proposing tariffs below the 2-US-dollar-cent-per-kWh threshold.

At 600MW in planned capacity, the Al-Faisaliah PV project is the largest of the lot and will be either contracted to a consortium led by Saudi player ACWA Power, or a rival partnership led by United Arab Emirates-headquartered firm Masdar.

The solar bids of US$0.0162/kWh [$16.20/MWh] now being touted in Saudi Arabia mirror the tariffs of US$0.016953/kWh scored last October by a 900MW project in Dubai. The Middle Eastern solar milestones emerge after similar numbers were reported for PV tenders in Brazil and Portugal.

[From PV-Tech]

New York State governor Andrew Cuomo has revealed the winners of the third tender conducted by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, which amounted to 1,278MW of new large-scale solar, wind, and energy storage projects across the state – and all delivered at stunningly low prices.

The new slate of renewable energy projects – some of which are expected to break ground as early as late-2020, and all of which are expected to be completed by 2024 – include 17 new ground-mounted solar projects totaling 1,090MW, and 40MW of battery storage projects.

Additionally, three existing wind farms will be repowered leading to an increase in new renewable capacity of 35.8MW, while a development of a new 145MW wind farm was also awarded a procurement contract.

The 21 projects are expected to generate over 2.5 million megawatt-hours of renewable energy each year – enough electricity equivalent to powering over 350,000 homes and enough to reduce emissions by more than 1.3 million metric tonnes annually, itself the equivalent of taking nearly 300,000 cars off the road every year.

Importantly, bid prices for this third round of procurement included project bid offers 23% lower than bids received three years ago. The weighted average award price for this third solicitation is $US18.59/MWh of production over the 20-year term of the awarded contracts.

[From IEEFA]

These numbers are way below the operating cost of coal power stations ($28-$41/MWh) and way, way below the cost of new coal power stations ($66-$152).   As I discuss here, even without extensive storage, we can still cut the use of coal-fired power by 80%

Source: Lazard
Red rectangle shows cost range for these new contracts.