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NREL Study Suggests Cost Gap for Western Renewables Could Narrow by 2025
http://www.nrel.gov/news/press/2013/2283.html[font face=Serif]News Release NR-4813
[font size=5]NREL Study Suggests Cost Gap for Western Renewables Could Narrow by 2025[/font]
August 23, 2013
[font size=3]A new Energy Department study conducted by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) indicates that by 2025 wind and solar power electricity generation could become cost-competitive without federal subsidies, if new renewable energy development occurs in the most productive locations.
The report, "Beyond Renewable Portfolio Standards: An Assessment of Regional Supply and Demand Conditions Affecting the Future of Renewable Energy in the West," (PDF) compares the cost of renewable electricity generation (without federal subsidy) from the West’s most productive renewable energy resource areas—including any needed transmission and integration costs—with the cost of energy from a new natural gas-fired generator built near the customers it serves.
“The electric generation portfolio of the future could be both cost effective and diverse,” said NREL Senior Analyst David Hurlbut, the report’s lead author. “If renewables and natural gas cost about the same per kilowatt-hour delivered, then value to customers becomes a matter of finding the right mix.
“Renewable energy development, to date, has mostly been in response to state mandates,” Hurlbut said. “What this study does is look at where the most cost-effective yet untapped resources are likely to be when the last of these mandates culminates in 2025, and what it might cost to connect them to the best-matched population centers.”
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[font size=5]NREL Study Suggests Cost Gap for Western Renewables Could Narrow by 2025[/font]
August 23, 2013
[font size=3]A new Energy Department study conducted by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) indicates that by 2025 wind and solar power electricity generation could become cost-competitive without federal subsidies, if new renewable energy development occurs in the most productive locations.
The report, "Beyond Renewable Portfolio Standards: An Assessment of Regional Supply and Demand Conditions Affecting the Future of Renewable Energy in the West," (PDF) compares the cost of renewable electricity generation (without federal subsidy) from the West’s most productive renewable energy resource areas—including any needed transmission and integration costs—with the cost of energy from a new natural gas-fired generator built near the customers it serves.
“The electric generation portfolio of the future could be both cost effective and diverse,” said NREL Senior Analyst David Hurlbut, the report’s lead author. “If renewables and natural gas cost about the same per kilowatt-hour delivered, then value to customers becomes a matter of finding the right mix.
“Renewable energy development, to date, has mostly been in response to state mandates,” Hurlbut said. “What this study does is look at where the most cost-effective yet untapped resources are likely to be when the last of these mandates culminates in 2025, and what it might cost to connect them to the best-matched population centers.”
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