Renewables are on track to keep getting cheaper and cheaper

[Think. Again.]

A new report says that ongoing improvements in solar and wind tech will keep driving steep cost declines that make them even more competitive against fossil fuels.

Alison F. Takemura, 1 September 2023
Full Article: https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/clean-energy/charts-renewables-are-on-track-to-keep-getting-cheaper-and-cheaper

Renewable energy already beats fossil fuels on cost globally — and according to analysts, the gap is only going to grow.

By 2030, technology improvements could slash today’s prices by a quarter for wind and by half for solar, according to the authors of a recent report from clean energy think tank RMI.



These remarkable and ongoing cost declines have made clean energy so attractive that it now outcompetes fossil fuels for new investment: 62 percent of global energy investment is expected to flow to clean energy technologies this year.

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What we’re living in ​“is an energy technology revolution,” said report co-author Kingsmill Bond, an energy strategist at RMI. It’s obvious from the data, yet the point is often lost in ​“a consistent drumbeat of counternarratives” about how difficult it is, and will be, to leave fossil fuels behind, he added.

-snip-

That’s not to say the energy revolution will happen on its own. As the report states, ​“We have to work hard” to stay on this trajectory. ​“We need to build out grids, change permitting laws, scale up flexibility solutions, improve regulatory and market systems, and speed up deployment in the Global South.”

But those actions will only become easier the cheaper renewable energy gets, according to Butler-Sloss. ​“There is an inexorable economic logic to this transition,” he said. And although the transition needs to go faster, ​“it provides massive momentum to have the economics on our side.”

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Full Article: https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/clean-energy/charts-renewables-are-on-track-to-keep-getting-cheaper-and-cheaper

[Emile]

1. Awesome +1

[Blues Heron]

2. And, as always, the fuel is free and infinite.

Unlike filthy fossil fuels and toxic radioactive nukes.

[Think. Again.]

3. AND...

...can't be monopolized by any nation or corporation.

[Blues Heron]

4. good point - its ubiquitous

[NickB79]

5. Are you forgetting the lithium and rare earth elements needed?

China is already worked ng to monopolize the market for the raw materials needed to build wind and solar equipment.

[Think. Again.]

6. Lithium isn't used in solar or wind...

...but that's one of the reasons I think we should be going with Hydrogen from the start, instead of batteries for our storage and vehicle fuel needs, the lithium location and limited supply thing.

[OKIsItJustMe]

7. Well, actually, plans currently call for lithium-ion batteries to stabilize the grid

Solar and wind fluctuate over time. Large batteries can be used to smooth that out to an extent. Current plans call for those batteries to be lithium-ion…

So, yeah, in a way, lithium is needed for both solar and wind…

https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/articles/solar-plus-storage-101

[Think. Again.]

10. No....

...lithium batteries are not the only storage medium available and if they proof to be too expensive, or monopolized, or in short supply, or destructive to mine, other storage methods, like H2, can be used.

[OKIsItJustMe]

12. Hydrogen serves a different purpose

Lithium-ion batteries have very good round-trip efficiency. Splitting water to produce hydrogen, and then reversing the process does not.

That doesn’t mean that hydrogen does not have its place, but moment-to-moment grid stabilization is not it.

[Think. Again.]

14. Hydrogen is an energy storage medium...

...that can be used to stabilize output for a grid.

It can also be used to generate electricity within EVs.

It can also be used as a combustable fuel in apprpriate combustion engine vehicles or generators.

[OKIsItJustMe]

17. Hydrogen is better suited to long-term energy storage

Energy & Environmental Science: A low temperature unitized regenerative fuel cell realizing 60% round trip efficiency and 10 000 cycles of durability for energy storage applications

60% is a really big deal. However, what that means is, if you have an extra 100 watts, and store them in the system, you’ll only get 60 watts back out when you want to use them.

NREL: Utility-Scale Battery Storage

…

Round-Trip Efficiency
Round-trip efficiency is the ratio of useful energy output to useful energy input. (Mongird et al., 2020) identified 86% as a representative round-trip efficiency, and the 2022 ATB adopts this value. In the same report, testing showed 83-87%, literature range of 77-98%, and a projected increase to 88% in 2030.

…

One nice thing about hydrogen is that to increase your storage (if you’re storing it as a gas) you simply need a larger tank, whereas batteries are (essentially) solid, so to increase the storage capacity of a battery, you need a proportionate increase in the amount of raw materials.

NREL’s plans for a 100% clean grid call for batteries for “di-urnal” (day-night) storage and hydrogen for longer-term storage.

[Think. Again.]

18. Yes...

Energy is lost when you transfer it from one form to another.

Even charging an EV off the grid losses energy in the transfer.

[OKIsItJustMe]

19. Efficiency is important

If you want 100 watt-hours to light a couple of lights in your house after dark and your storage system is ~85% efficient, you will need to generate ~117 watt-hours during the day. On the other hand, if your storage system is ~60% efficient, you will need to generate ~166 watt-hours during the day. That means you will need ~40% more generating capacity.

As it stands, we already need to manufacture and deploy solar and wind at unprecedented rates…

[Think. Again.]

20. I agree...

...but there are also other considerations, such as the ultimately limited supply of lithium, the affects of mining for the stuff, how feasible it is to build a battery-based automotive economy just to start all over again with H2 when the lithium becomes a monopolized and politically-controlled scarcity...

Personally, I believe the ultimate solution lies in scaling back EVERYTHING, but I know we won't be doing that until a large portion of our population has dwindled away.

[OKIsItJustMe]

21. Who says lithium isn't already a monopolized commodity?

I’m not expressing opinions. I’m expressing facts.

[NickB79]

9. Globally it's pretty clear EV's are the route we're going for transportation

The few H2 projects we're seeing are absolutely dwarfed by EV production. And hydrogen electrolysis typically uses rare earth elements to increase efficiency, so it too has a monopoly vulnerability by a few countries and corporations.

[OKIsItJustMe]

16. Researchers are developing ways around the rare earth catalysts

…and not just earth-abundant catalysts…

Graphene discovery could help generate hydrogen cheaply and sustainably

There’s hope for the future… However, we live in the present.

[OKIsItJustMe]

8. As for renewables inevitably getting cheaper...

Equinor, BP seek 54% hike in US offshore wind power price, filings show

[Think. Again.]

11. Yes, COSTS are getting cheaper...

..corporate price-gouging and profiteering are nothing new.

[OKIsItJustMe]

13. OK, so are you going to build a wind farm?

Don’t get me wrong. Prices will likely continue to get lower (on the whole.) However, in solar (for example) the cost of the hardware is now becoming less of an issue than (so called) “soft costs.”

https://www.nrel.gov/solar/market-research-analysis/solar-installed-system-cost.html

[Think. Again.]

15. Community built generation systems...

...in which there is no profit margin to consider, are fairly common.