New record for Chile wind + solar

 From EMBER

Chile's wind and solar generation surpassed 40% of power for the first time in December last year 📈⚡ Throughout 2024, wind and solar generated a RECORD THIRD of Chile's electricity—more than double that in 2019. 🔗 Read more: ember-energy.org/lat...

Including hydro, renewables now make up  80% of total electricity generation.

Two-thirds of Chile's electricity from renewables

 From a tweet by LowCarbonPower.  

Chile, shining as the global frontrunner in solar energy, harnessed 17% of its electricity from sunrays in 2022. This year it's set to break records again, likely eclipsing the 20% mark. Data from February

Chile to close 8 coal power stations

Tamarugal (Chile) CSP plant.  Source: Carbon Reduction Institute

From France24:

Chile announced Tuesday it would close eight coal-fired power stations over the next five years as part of a plan to switch entirely to renewable energy by 2040.

The closures, announced by Chile's conservative President Sebastian Pinera, account for 20 percent of the country's energy capacity, or 23,000 megawatts.

"The steps that we are announcing today are a concrete and real way of transforming words and commitments into facts and realities," Pinera said during a speech in the highly-polluted northern city of Tocopilla.

Chile, a net importer of energy, has relied increasingly on coal-powered electricity generation over the last decade, driven largely by the end of imports of natural gas from Argentina.
Imports were resumed last year under a new agreement with Buenos Aires, leading Chile to lessen its reliance on coal.

About 40 percent of Chile's electricity generation comes from 28 coal-fired power stations. The goal is to replace them all by 2040 and become fully carbon-neutral by 2050.

Pinera has pushed Chile's clean energy transformation drive first begun under his leftist predecessor Michelle Bachelet, favoring renewable sources of energy like wind, solar and geothermal stations.

The South American country will host the 25th UN Climate Change Conference, COP25, in December.

The shutdown of four coal-fired plants in Tocopilla -- as well as others in Iquique, Puchuncavi in the center, and in the southern city of Coronel -- will reduce annual Co2 emissions from the current 30 million tonnes (tons) to four million by 2024, the government said.

Once they are shut down, the plants will remain mothballed in a state of "operational reserve," ready to be called into service in an emergency at any time over the following five-year period, Pinera said.

Chile stepped in to host COP25 after Brazil withdrew following the election of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, a notorious climate change skeptic.

Cutting out coal is one of the biggest steps we can take to cut emissions.  Even better if output from coal power stations is replaced with electricity from wind, solar and concentrated solar power.

Incredibly cheap solar

The 56.7 MW Uribe Solar plant in the Antofagasta region of northern Chile
(Source: PV Magazine)

This time in Chile.

Enel Generación Chile (EGC) has bid just $21.48/MWh to supply electricity to Chile's grid from a new solar farm in the Antofagasta province of Chile.  Note that there is no subsidy involved.

Why so cheap?  First off, Antofagasta is at latitude 24 degrees south of the equator.  This is a lot closer to the equator than, say Los Angeles or Dallas or Adelaide.  Second, this is desert, one of the driest deserts in the world.  So the amount of sunshine is high.  Third, Chile has a stable renewables policy.  This means greater certainty which lowers the interest rate developers can borrow at, and because almost all the cost of renewables is up front (unlike with coal or gas), this makes wind and solar cheaper.  At higher latitudes, solar is more expensive.  But even in Denmark (latitude 55) solar costs just $54/MWh.  Fourth, there is a "learning curve" effect.  Everybody in the whole process of integrating solar into the grid knows how it works, knows the rules and the climates involved, is familiar with costings, connection processes, bid processes and so on.  A similar learning curve experience is why rooftop solar is so much cheaper in Australia than it is in the USA.

It's obvious to everybody except dimwitted denialists that most of the world between latitudes 40 north and south could easily and cheaply replace fossil fuels with solar, with only a few hours of storage needed.  Closer to the poles, wind power will be more important, and to reach 100% renewables seasonal storage will be required.  But it's still perfectly doable.  More: it's essential, if we are to avoid 2 degrees of warming.   The logic is compelling: renewables are cheaper, sometimes much cheaper, and we have no choice but to transition to a carbon-free economy.

CSP gets dirt cheap

Source

Solar Reserve, the people behind the Crescent Dunes concentrated solar power (CSP) plant in Nevada, have bid just US$63/MWh in the reverse auction with the Chilean government for their Copiapó plant in Chile.  Here's part of an interview between CleanTechnica's Susan Kraemer and Kevin Smith, CEO of Solar Reserve:

SK: You bid Crescent Dunes in Nevada at 13.5 cents, then Redstone in South Africa at 12 cents. Your bid in Chile was 6.3 cents. How are you able to come down so low for solar that includes thermal storage so it can be dispatched any time — 24-hour solar for just 6.3 cents/kWh?  

KS: SolarReserve has made substantial advances in our technology that has increased efficiencies and brought down capital costs since our first project in Nevada.
But there are a number of other factors that influence power prices and the Chilean market appears to be ideally suited for solar thermal with storage. In addition to the best solar resource in the world, the country’s stable financial status along with US dollar denominated power contracts results in excellent financing and investment terms

SK: How do you ensure that you can deliver solar power around the clock? Does that require operating at something less than full capacity?  

KS: Our bulk storage capabilities utilizing molten salt give us tremendous flexibility, without having to consider the degradation issues associated with batteries or the replacement cost issues. 

We’re designing the projects in Chile for full capacity 24 hours a day. To do that we put in about 14 hours of storage. That will give us the full capacity of the project essentially 24 hours a day.

SK: Might you bid a Hybrid PV/CSP like Copiapó in Chile’s Next Round? 

KS: We permitted Copiapó for PV as well as CSP, but actually in the current situation, we’re not sure of the value of adding PV into the mix, because daytime power prices are low. We can take the PV out as we’re not required to include it. We could always come in later and add the PV in the future if it makes economic sense, but we think it has limited value in the Chilean sector right now: there has been an oversupply during the day because of all the PV. 

So in the last round we bid Copiapó purely as CSP with SolarReserve’s tower and molten salt storage technology. We had already made that decision that the PV wasn’t adding any value to the bid, so we did not include the PV, and we bid that at $63/MWh. 

[Read more here]

That's cheap.  What this means is that CSP can deliver power 24/7 at a lower price than coal or gas, without any CO2 emissions. 

Obviously it's cheapest in desert regions close-ish to the equator, like northern Chile, and in the mid-latitudes it will be 20 to 40%  more expensive, because there's less sunshine.  At high latitudes, wind plus storage remains the most attractive option--but it is also true that countries like Denmark could still get their power from CSP plants in Spain via HVDC lines.

Solar Reserve is planning two more CSP plants in Chile, each with three towers, has offered to build six in South Australia, and is planning on building a ten-tower complex in China.

Renewables just keep on getting cheaper

(Source; click to enlarge)

In Mexico:

Twice in 2016 Mexico held two renewable power auctions that raised significant investor participation. 

The most recent, in September, saw 23 winning bids out of a pool of 57 to build renewable projects worth $4 billion for 2,871 megawatts of new capacity. More important, the average price at the auctions was US$33.47 per megawatt hour, (MWh) 30 percent less than prices from a previous auction in March. In the September auction, 54 percent of the supply was awarded to solar projects and 43 percent to wind farms. 

The March auction drew 69 prequalified bidders and awarded 18 projects with a total of 1,691 megawatts for solar and 394 for wind. The a average contract price was $47.60/MWh

(Source)

In Chile:

According to media reports, Mainstream Renewable Power Ltd. and Empresa Nacional de Electricidad/Chile SA won more than two-thirds of the electricity supply auction in Chile. 

Meanwhile, Solarpack set a new record-low solar bid at 2.91¢/kWh ($29.1/MWh). That beats the 2.99¢/kWh bid a Masdar Consortium provided for an 800 MW solar power project in Dubai earlier this year. 

Mainstream has won rights to supply 3.7 TWh of electricity every year (30% of the auctioned electricity), while Endesa, a subsidiary of Enel, will supply 4.9 TWh (40% of the auctioned electricity). There was a significant correction in tariff in this auction compared to previous one. The average tariff bid in the auction declined 40% to US$47.59 per MWh compared to the previous auction. 

To supply the contracted electricity Mainstream will develop 7 wind energy projects with a total capacity of 985 MW. To achieve this capacity, the company is expected to invest $1.65 billion over the next 5 years. Electricity generated from these projects will be sold at tariffs between $38.8 per MWh and $47.2 per MWh.

(Source)

In Abu Dhabi:

The United Arab Emirates has seen yet another record-breaking solar power tariff bid. Abu Dhabi received the lowest-ever bid for a solar PV project at a shocking 2.42¢/kWh, taking back the title of cheapest solar power project from Chile. 

Abu Dhabi Electricity and Water Authority received a total of 6 bids for the proposed 350 MW solar PV project planned to be built in the town of Swaihan, Abu Dhabi. Out of 6 bids, the lowest ever bid of 2.42¢/kWh has been submitted by the JinkoSolar–Marubeni consortium. The results of the tender are not out yet, as authorities will now evaluate the proposals for technical and economic viability. 

The current bid of 2.42¢/kWh is the lowest so far globally, and by quite a bit — it is shockingly low. This bid is 20% lower than the previous record bid of 2.91¢/kWh submitted at an auction in Chile last month. 

The second-lowest bid in the Abu Dhabi tender was reportedly not much higher, at 2.53¢/kWh, and was submitted by a local firm. These bids also beat the 2.99¢/kWh bid (shocking at the time … and still to some extent) submitted by a Masdar-led consortium for an 800 MW solar PV project in Dubai. 

The Abu Dhabi solar park was initially planned for 350 MW. However, media reports state a possible increase in project size, as bidders were allowed to bid for larger capacities. The final capacity of the solar power park may well increase to 1 GW.

(Source)


Some points:

• These, like South Africa, are mid-ranking developing countries.  Their electricity demand, contrasting with the situation in developed countries, is still growing.
• Solar costs have more than halved in two years.  More than halved.  In two years.
• These prices are already irresistibly cheap.  And they're going to get cheaper.  If electricity demand is expanding, the new generators built are not going to be coal-fired.  They're going to be wind and solar.  In developed countries, it's harder.  Even though renewables are cheaper than new coal, often much cheaper, existing coal power stations look cheap, because they're fully depreciated.  So the switch to renewables is constrained, though it is happening, especially where generation is highly competitive, for example in the USA.  The good news is that most of the coal generating fleet in developed countries is past its design life, and major refurbishment is not worth it.  New capacity (as it already is in the US) will be renewables plus gas, and coal-fired power stations will be progressively retired.
• This means that coal demand has peaked, and that emissions from burning coal have peaked too.  Coal is the biggest contributor to CO2 emissions.  It's very likely that within 20 years there will be no coal-fired power stations.  Anywhere.  And that's without a carbon tax.  Introduce a $30 per tonne carbon tax and coal generators are toast.
• It also means that despite Trump and his gang of climate-denying, oil- and coal-loving cabinet, despite the Republican cognitive dissonance about global warming, the renewables revolution is irreversible.  For a start, it's happening now in developing countries including China, not just rich developed countries.  Second, even in the USA, the switch to renewables is being driven not just by regulation, but by price.  And the states in the "wind corridor" might vote Republican but they're also very fond of their wind turbines and the cheap power they generate.
• These developing countries and the US are installing both wind and solar, even though solar is cheaper, because the two together minimise the storage needed.  For now, the variability of renewables supply will be compensated for by gas.  In future, storage (CSP and batteries) will take the place of gas peaking power plants.  So demand for natural gas prolly hasn't peaked.  Yet.
• The reverse auction (i.e., targeting the lowest not the highest price) is an extremely effective method to slash renewables costs. Are you listening Australia?  Germany?
• I keep on saying this, so I'm beginning to sound like a record (remember them?) with a scratch.  But there are now no technical nor economic reasons  why we cannot aggressively switch electricity generation to renewables.   Global temps are rising by 0.2 deg C per decade.  Even though global CO2 emissions have probably peaked, they're not falling fast enough. We need to stop making excuses, stop listening to the lies of the denialists, and move.