Renewables are cheaper than coal in all but one US location
- Reference: 1675100527
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/01/30/renewables_cheaper_than_coal/
- Source link:
In its [1]third Coal Crossover Report , researchers at Energy Innovation and UC Berkeley said there were 210 coal plants in the US, and except the Dry Fork facility in Wyoming, all of them would cost more to continue operating than if they were shut down today and replaced with new wind or solar power plants – and not by just a little bit either.
In large part thanks to renewable energy credits included in the [2]Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the study said that solar economics in coal communities have been reshaped. "The median cost of new solar in these communities is about $24/MWh with low variance, while the median marginal cost of coal is $36/MWh," the study said. That latter figure is "high variance" too, meaning it could fluctuate down, or up, but a lot.
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Keep in mind also that the study said "new" solar – so that includes the cost to turn decommissioned coal plants into renewable energy facilities and taking advantage of existing grid connections to speed projects along.
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If coal generation was replaced with local solar at those costs, communities could see up to $589 billion in clean energy investments on top of reduced costs for operation. That, in turn, can help eliminate energy stability concerns, the study said.
"Replacing coal generation with local renewable resources could save enough to finance installation of 137 GW of four-hour battery storage — 62 percent of the coal fleet's nameplate capacity," the researchers wrote in the study.
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"Coal is unequivocally more expensive than wind and solar resources, it's just no longer cost competitive with renewables. This report certainly challenges the narrative that coal is here to stay," Michelle Solomon, a policy analyst at Energy Innovation, [7]told The Guardian.
Coalapse imminent?
The use of coal [8]peaked in 2007, and since then has been on a sharp decline as use of renewables and alternative fossil fuels like natural gas have risen.
[9]Have we hit a climate tipping point? Green power attracts big money
[10]Microsoft shells out for 2.5GW of solar. Not that it'll make a big dent in its emissions
[11]Uncle Sam greenlights first commercial nuclear small modular reactor design
[12]Nuclear-powered datacenter throws open doors to tenants this year
Since then (with a few [13]exceptions ) coal use has continued to shrink to the point where, in early 2020, the amount of US electricity generated by renewables [14]surpassed coal. That same year, coal production in the US fell to its lowest level since 1965.
Last year, the International Energy Agency revised its predictions for the growth of the renewable energy sector upward by 30 percent and said it believed wind and solar would overtake coal as the world's dominant energy source by 2025. Last year was also the first time wind and solar fulfilled 10 percent of the world's electricity demand, so those predictions aren't for nothing.
In its first Coal Crossover Report, issued in 2019, Energy Innovation said it found 62 percent of existing coal capacity was uneconomic. The second study, in 2021, found that 72 percent of coal capacity was in the same position, and that 80 percent of existing plants were already more expensive to operate due to existing tax credits.
The jump to "everyone but Dry Fork is wasting money" in one year was surprising, Solomon said, noting: "It shows that not only have renewables dropped in cost, the Inflation Reduction Act is accelerating this trend."
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Of course, a sudden one-to-one replacement of coal with renewable energy isn't going to actually happen, and the study admits that readily. "While the economic case is clear and virtually universal, barriers remain to replacing coal with clean energy, and policymakers must act," the study concludes.
To speed things along, the researchers say regulators should work to improve electrical grids to prepare for renewables, take full advantage of available IRA funds, and that coal communities should use clean energy development as an anchor for larger economic transitions. ®
Get our [16]Tech Resources
[1] https://energyinnovation.org/publication/coal-cost-crossover-3-0-local-renewables-plus-storage-create-new-opportunities-for-customer-savings-and-community-reinvestment/
[2] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/08/15/by-the-numbers-the-inflation-reduction-act/
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Y9hMEPfMfAlIQFE32a0ljgAAABg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y9hMEPfMfAlIQFE32a0ljgAAABg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Y9hMEPfMfAlIQFE32a0ljgAAABg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y9hMEPfMfAlIQFE32a0ljgAAABg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/30/us-coal-more-expensive-than-renewable-energy-study
[8] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/coal/use-of-coal.php
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/27/weve_reached_another_climate_tipping/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/26/microsoft_green_power/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/24/us_nuclear_reactor_approval/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/19/nuclear_powered_datacenter/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/29/wind_solar_power_electricity_record/
[14] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=42336
[15] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Y9hMEPfMfAlIQFE32a0ljgAAABg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[16] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Inflation increasing act. Or the 'pork for the lobbyists' act?
In this case it is corporate welfare. Power companies can get up to 60% of the cost of replacing a coal plant with solar paid for by the government. Will their customers share in that windfall? Oh no. And a huge missing piece of the equation... there is no expectation that the new solar plant produce as much electricity as the coal plant that it is replacing. So what happens to the price of electricity when the capacity shrinks? Great deal for the power companies, though.
So in conclusion
Coal only needs $12/MWh in subsidies
Re: So in conclusion
So, in summary... Coal is cheaper because there are massive subsidies. You could subsidise putting guinea pigs onto a treadmill and make that appear cheaper too.
Such a misleading headline.
Re: So in conclusion
when gummints control prices based on politics, you get "what we have now", energy prices doubled from what they were 2 years ago but NOW "renewables cost less".
Wheee.
(My gas+electric bill is over $800 thanks to this kind of nonsense)
Re: So in conclusion
My gas & electric bill was going up 50% a year thanks to the local power company doing whatever the hell it feels like without much government interference.
I'm about net zero annually with solar, a battery, and buying better appliances when the old ones wear out. If winter rates or credits become less regulated, I can buy more panels, storage, and home insulation to keep the crazy energy rates away.
Re: So in conclusion
Good lord, bob, how do you even manage that?
Re: So in conclusion
He probably feels it is his patriotic duty to not insulate his house and keep it at 75F (i.e. freedom units) all winter long to support the fossil fuel industry!
My mom lives in a poorly insulated 50 year old 5000 sq ft house she keeps at 72F (22C) all winter and it "only" costs her $400 a month - and that was with it getting well below zero F for nearly a week earlier in the winter. I can't imagine what Bob is doing to spend so much on heat unless he lives in a 10K sq ft plus McMansion in Fargo, ND.
Re: So in conclusion
>He probably feels it is his patriotic duty to not insulate his house and keep it at 75F (i.e. freedom units) all winter long to support the fossil fuel industry!
By burning more coal he is creating global warming (which doesn't exist and is a liberal plot / or does exist but is due to China) - so creating warmer winters for people who can't afford to heat their homes
Re: So in conclusion
We have been relatively lucky in Europe with the self inflicted 'energy crisis' that it has (so far) been relatively mild.
A few minor points that jumped out at me.. Other than this being a sales pitch for the $600bn on offer in the 'Inflation Reduction Act'.
Figure 2. Impact of tax credits on local solar LCOEs in our analysis, including the energy community bonus. The yellow diamond indicates the average cost of each resource (weighted by generation). With the IRA, the economic case for local solar becomes unequivocal.
Yes, well. The figure shows that solar is around $6/MWh more expensive than coal, unless it's given a $20/MWh subsidy from the IRA. That subsidy is still a cost, and will have to be paid by US energy users. If carbon costs were removed from coal plants, coal would be considerably cheaper. This is the normal deception used by the 'renewables' industry. They're cheaper, only if costs are loaded onto competitors, and subsidies paid to themselves.
Coal plants in our dataset had an average capacity factor of 46 percent, which means they ran, on average, only 46 percent of the time. This on-again, off-again operation increases wear and tear on coal plants designed for a different operating paradigm.
This is an egregious lie. It doesn't mean what they say it means, and the advertorial doesn't give capacity factors for wind or solar. It's also a policy thing. If 'renewables' are given priority access, as in the UK, then because generation needs to match demand, non-'renewables' need to flex up/down to match wind or solar outputs. So if it's windy summer day, the need for coal (or gas, nuclear) would be lower than when there's a winter anticyclone and no wind for days at a time.
So when non-renewables are forced to operate at less than 100% efficiency, their costs obviously increase. So coal power stations would be paying fixed overheads, despite regulators not permitting them to sell electricity. This obviously inflates the cost of coal by comparison. By contrast..
We find that the savings generated by shifting to local solar could fund the addition of 137 GW of four-hour batteries across all plants. For this analysis, we start with a $330 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) price for the storage,
This claim really puzzled me. It talks about solar. Solar relies on sunlight. Unless they've figured out cheap ways to use space-based sun mirrors, most nights are longer than 4hrs. The sponsors could be planning on building massive solar farms in Alaska I gues. It also does the usual trick of mixing energy and power. So..
$330/kWh = $330m/GWh x 137 = $45.2bn just for batteries. That won't even last a night, let alone a winter anticyclone.
Some rather carefully selected numbers in that report. Averages are great for making renewables look good. The problem is they average over a much longer period than 4 hours.
Also is the very cheap solar equipment coming from the US or somewhere with more lax environmental regulations?
The bill is also giving an additional 10% tax credit for buying US made solar equipment, so they're subsidizing that too.
Downvotes
The Reg should have a way to downvote articles that are so selective in their quoting of "facts" just like comments may be downvoted.
For a level playing field - no subsides for wind or solar and no carbon penalty for coal/oil or gas. If this is done then wind and solar are hopelessly uneconomic except in remote off grid areas.
Also the price paid for wind and solar generation should be penalized due to its unreliable nature (solar is zero at night and low on cloudy days, wind power output varies widely (from zero in calm to a maximum at medium-high wind speeds then dropping to zero when the wind speed is too high for the generators)).
...take full advantage of available IRA funds...
For those of us of a certain generation from a certain part of the world that little phrase has a very uncomfortable meaning.
*Shudder*
You mean the proud patriots of Boston who contributed to a peaceful Northern Irish cultural group committed to traditional folk pursuits and who didn't do anything like pirating DVDs that would fund terrorism ?
Additionally . . .
Communities which switch to renewables will see fewer health issues due to coal plant exhaust, the ridiculous power wielded by the fossil fuel lobby will be somewhat lessened, and, over time, financial impacts due to climate change will be lessened. Perhaps the coal-mining residents of West Virginia and Kentucky can reskill as solar panel installers, which would be less hazardous to their health as well.
Re: Additionally . . .
Depends if you are just moving the pollution somewhere else.
Sloppy
Strange. There's quite a few typos (such as "renewabales") and the blue sidebar on pg24 doesn't even finish. It's cut off in mid-sentence.
I tried to find out how they square replacing a (relatively) small coal plant with a wind farm or solar panels, which usually requires a lot more land. I also tried to find out if they include the costs of demolishing the old building, building the new plant, and other related things. Things like coal stack chimneys are especially expensive to demolish and cart off. I didn't see anything.
Re: Sloppy
I didn't see anything.
The only bits that are really relevant are IRA's offering $600bn in subsidies, and the paper's sponsors want a fat slab of that, plus the ongoing subsidies, tax breaks and other incentives. What they won't want are any liabilities, like decommisioning costs. Or compensating for deaths/serious injuries when massive battery farms catch fire and spew out flourine compounds, heavy metals and masses of pollutants. The general idea though is to make bank consulting/designing/building these turkeys, carving out revenue/subsidy streams into SPVs that can be flogged off, and leave the liabilities for some other sucker to deal with. Often that's the land owner, or if these are built on public/federal land, it'll be the taxpayers.
It's perhaps not unsprising that double glazing sales folks dived into the 'renewables' sector.
So they're reducing inflation with massive injections of cash into the economy.
Government at work.