Saturday, August 14, 2021

IRENA vs Lazard's solar costs

 The chart below is derived from two different sources:  IRENA  and Lazard.  The biggest difference between the two is that the Lazard report covers just the US, while IRENA's data covers the globe.  Another difference is that IRENA (in recent years) has used actual contracts instead of LCOE calculations as Lazard does, though in fact contract costings in the US have been broadly similar to Lazard's LCOE calcs.

The costs have been plotted on a log scale in the chart, which means that a similar percentage decline is the same distance on the chart.  This means that a sustained constant rate of decline produces a straight line.  

IRENA's costs for solar globally have until recently been higher than Lazard's in the US, but recently, this gap has closed, and assuming that the recent 5-year rates of decline are extrapolated forward, the average cost of solar internationally will fall below the cost in the USA.   This presumably reflects the expansion of solar into poorer countries in low latitudes, whose solar resources are way better than the Northern Hemisphere developed countries which are higher latitude.  It's ironic―and good news!―that developing countries which have hitherto been at an energy disadvantage will now start to benefit from really cheap energy.  If the extrapolations do reflect reality, by 2025, electricity from solar will cost just $17/MWh.  In 2010, it cost $378/MWh. 

One final point: the lowest fossil fuel cost is $50/MWh (presumably for gas in the US).  The highest is $177.  They are already uncompetitive, though gas at least is complementary to renewables, and will get more uncompetitive as costs continue to decline.  Anybody who invests long-term in fossil fuels―as opposed to holding trading positions―will lose their money.




No comments:

Post a Comment