Rooftop solar will soon be cheaper than coal
A new study says even household rooftop solar systems will generate
electricity cheaper than coal.
A new study suggests that wind and solar plants are already competing with
fossil fuel costs in Europe. Soon, even household rooftop solar systems will
generate electricity cheaper than coal. And it won’t have the delivery costs.
The study from Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems
says the cost of rooftop solar in the southern parts of Germany is already as
cheap as €0.08c/kWh ($A12c/kWh) and €0.14c/kWh in northern germany.
By 2030, the levellised cost of energy from rooftop solar PV will have fallen to
€0.06c/kWh. In sunnier countries, the cost of solar will be lower still, at around
€0.043c/kWh
It says onshore wind is already between €0.05c/kWh and €0.11ckWh,
although this is unlikely to achieve significant further cost reductions.
“Even small roof-installed PV systems will be able to compete with onshore
wind and also with the higher generation costs in the future from brown coal,
hard coal and combined cycle gas power plants,” Fraunhofer ISE director,
professor Eicke Weber said in the report
He says it is clear that wind and solar will “win the race towards cost
leadership” with coal and gas. Although offshore wind has higher costs, it also
has more hours at full load operation. The higher costs for biomass systems
are balanced by its controllability.
The study found that even small roof-installed PV systems in northern
Germany produce electricity today for less than €0.14/kWh, and therefore lie
well below the average electricity price of €0.29kWh for households.
It said the current LCOE from onshore wind ranges between €0.05 and
€0.11/kWh, putting it below hard coal and gas. Offshore wind, on the other
hand, has much higher electricity generation costs of €0.12 to €0.19kWh,
despite the fact that it has more full-load operating hours.
The study said offshore wind technology still shows a large potential for cost
reductions, whereas onshore wind has nearly reached its limit. Levelised
electricity generation costs from biogas, widely deployed in Germany, is
dependent on load and fuel type, and ranges from €0.14 to €0.22/kWh.
Fraunhofer says the availability of wind and sunshine is not the only variable
in the costs of energy - financing costs and risk premiums for new power
plants can also affect the results substantially.
“Only by including these factors in our study are we able to realistically
compare the levelized cost of electricity from the different technologies and
thus convincingly present the cost-competitiveness of renewables,” it says,
It estimates the levelized cost of electricity from brown coal presently extends
up to €0.053/kWh, from hard coal up to €0.08/kWh and from combined cycle
gas power plants up to €0.098/kWh respectively.
In the Middle East, considered to be the next big market in solar, oil-fired
power plants show generation costs in the range of €0.13 - €0.17/kWh
compared to PV with an LCOE of around €0.08/kWh.
It also noted that the costs of concentrated solar power plants (CSP, also known as solar
thermal) are also falling quickly. CSP plants with 8 hours storage current cost , but will likely
fall to €0.097 to €0.135/kWh by 2030. Importantly, these plants will be able to dispatch electricity on
demand.
It also said cost of concentrating solar PV technology, where mirrors are used to concentrate solar power
onto a powerful receiver, such as in the Mildura demonstration plant currently under construction from
Silx, could fall to between
2013.
.
€0.045 and €0.075/kWh by 2030, from around €0.082 to €0.148/kWh in