Wednesday, January 9, 2019

No way coal can recover

I've extracted these data from  Lazard's latest LCOE estimates.  To estimate where costs will be in 3 years, I've assumed for renewables that the growth rate for the last 5 years continues, and that for fossil fuels and nuclear that costs don't change.



Some points:


  • In 2013 the average cost of new wind and new solar (a 50/50 grid) which can provide semi-baseload power fell below the cost of coal.  Since then the gap has just kept getting bigger.  Coal doesn't stand a chance, and hasn't since 2013.
  • In 2015, the average coal/wind cost fell below the (average) cost of gas, and even though gas has fallen in cost thanks to the fracking revolution, the gap since then has widened.  Outside the US, gas is much more expensive, in some Asian countries more expensive than coal.  The only thing keeping gas going now is that it is very useful to "firm" renewable production.  When batteries get cheap enough, gas will go.
  • It's obviously now impossible for new coal to compete with renewables, but existing coal power stations still have a lower marginal cost ($29/MWh on average) than the average cost of new renewables.  That won't last much past 2021.  At that point, even young coal power stations will become uneconomic.  And the marginal costs of wind and solar are zero.
  • Nuclear is just a non-starter.
  • These are unsubsidised costs, but the cost to society of carbon emissions is not included either.
  • Subsidised (i.e., including the 30% tax credit) renewables are already almost as cheap as the marginal cost of coal. 
  • Extend these curves another 3 years, and it's obvious coal and gas power stations will be being shuttered helter-skelter by 2024.  It won't take 20 years for the US to transition to a 100% green grid.  It'll take maybe 10.


No comments:

Post a Comment