Just a weeks ago, the International Agency for Renewable Energy (IRENA) held its VIII Assembly. In this, more than 1.000 representatives from 150 countries participated and the importance of renewable energies in the necessary decarbonization of the electrical system was highlighted.
In addition to helping in Services, and that will be essential for the development of smart cities. The Secretary of State for Energy represented the Kingdom of Spain.
Lower costs
The learning curve for renewables is being important in recent years, this has led to a reduction in electricity generation costs.
This helps that every time are implemented projects in different parts of the world with an ever lower generation cost ratio.
Such is the case of on-shore wind energy that since 2010 has seen the cost reduced by approximately 25%, while photovoltaic solar energy has done so by a spectacular 75%.
Record price in photovoltaics
A few weeks ago, we already commented on this web page that there is a new record established by Mexico. The cheapest electricity in the world will be generated, as of 2020, in the Mexican state of Coahuila (north of the country)
The Ministry of Energy (SENER) and the National Center for Energy Control (CENACE) they have made known the first results of the long-term Electricity Auction 2017 that place the price at a historical record
46 bidders submitted their bids, 16 of which were selected as appropriate. This auction will allow power generation companies to obtain contracts for the sale of clean energy and power. A $ 2,369 million investment in 15 new power plants.
Within these 16, the Italian ENEL Green Power which offered the lowest price: 1.77 cents per kWh generated by photovoltaic energy, breaking the previous record offered by a Saudi Arabian company, which was 1.79 cents per kWh.
If the forecasts are met, it is expected that throughout 2019 or the end of 2018 the rates will decrease even more until reaching 1 cent per kWh
Cost reduction with renewable energies
In fact, IRENA published not long ago a report on the costs of electricity generation with the different renewable technologies in 2017 (Renewable power generation costs in 2017), where it is guaranteed that all renewable energies will be competitive in 2020.
This study establishes that the costs of electricity generation with photovoltaic solar energy will be reduced by half in 2020.
Fortunately, renewable energies are making their way into the world energy market. More and more countries are betting on renewables and less on fossil fuels. At least that is what a study presented in Madrid says, which shows that global energy investment fell by 12% in 2016, being the second consecutive year of decline.
The study has been prepared by IEA experts and is called Word Energy Investment. It contains a piece of information that reflects that investment in energy efficiency grew by 9%. Is it true that there is more and more energy efficiency and less fossil fuels?
Likewise, technologies such as biomass, geothermal, geothermal or hydraulics increasingly compete with conventional sources.
Investment
Most of the amount invested globally in energy efficiency went to building improvements, including efficient appliances and heating. In addition, it has been destined 65.000 over million went to R&D around the world in 2015. However, the amount spent on research and development in energy has not increased in the last four years, not even the share corresponding to renewable energy.
Luckily, we currently have a very different situation than what we had a few years ago, with respect to the comparison between the costs of electricity generation with renewable technologies compared to conventional technologies, where costs are in the range of 5-17 US cents per kWh.