Society continues to argue about whether it is wise not to bet heavily on renewable energy (solar energy, wind among others). Energy technologies are overtaking the governments of half the world and they are on the way to turning this debate into something totally out of date.
Solar energy, which became cheaper in the past year more than 75%, is already cheaper than any other type of energy produced with coal, oil or gas.
This is all great, but it's not enough. If solar energy wants to be a global player, it needs to be more profitable than other short-term energy sources: Currently it already is, and in more than 50 countries solar energy is the cheapest energy of all.
The energy battle is 20 years ahead
Although we normally look at the production price per kilowatt hour, that is not the most interesting price for adoption of renewable energies. At least, in a context like the current one in which renewables do not have subsidies to pay for investments.
Energy systems with giant structures in investments are made with several years of anticipation, even decades. That's one of the reasons why adoption of renewables is slow: once a nuclear, gas, coal (or any other type) plant has been built, it is not feasible to shut it down until the end of its useful life. If it were, normally nor the investment would be recovered, which is not going to happen because of the big lobbies out there.
In other words, if we want to study in detail how the composition of the energy market is going to evolve, we must look at how much it costs to start up each energy from scratch. The short and medium term profitability of power plants is key in the final decision of businessmen and politicians; Or, put another way, energy that is very cheap to produce and requires a very high initial investment will never be adopted.
Solar power can compete with anyone
According to several reports from more than one body, on the energy industry: «Unsubsidized solar power is starting to drive coal and natural gas off the market In addition, new solar projects in emerging markets are costing less than wind.
And, indeed, in almost sixty emerging countries the average price of the solar installations needed to producing each megawatt has already dropped to $ 1.650.000, below the 1.660.000 that wind energy costs.
As we can see in the previous graph, the evolution is quite clear. This means that emerging countries, which in general are the ones with the greatest increase in CO emissions2.
They have found a way to generate electricity at a competitive price and in a fully renewable way.
The price of solar energy vs coal price
This year has proven a race for solar energy in all aspects, since technological evolutionTo auctions where private companies compete for those huge contracts for electricity supply, month after month a record is set for the cheapest solar power.
Last year he started a contract for produce electricity for $ 64 per MW / hour from the country of India. A new agreement in August lowered the figure to an incredible figure of just over $ 29 megawatt time in Chile. That amount is a milestone in terms of the cost of electricity, being almost a 50% Organic than the price offered by coal.
With the report Levelized Costs Of Energy (Levelized Costs of the different Energy technologies, without subsidies). It is found that each year, renewables they are cheaper and the conventional ones more expensive.
And the cost trend is more than clear 😀
New record in Dubai in the price of solar thermal energy
The Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) has announced the bidding prices for the four consortia bidding for the development of the 200 megawatt fourth phase of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum solar park. The lowest bid submitted for this concentrated solar energy project it is 9,45 US cents (about 8.5 euro cents) per kWh.
This price represents a new record, since the previous one was 40% higher than the lowest price offered so far. Two other offers they also presented lower prices at 10 euro cents per kWh.
The tender for the fourth phase of the solar park of a thermosolar plant with tower technology includes energy storage for up to 12 hours, which means that this complex will be able to continue supplying electricity throughout the night, and it is the first phase of a development that plans to have 1.000 MW of solar thermal energy with tower technology.