According to the latest research from Bloomberg New Energy Finance, electricity from wind power can now be supplied more cheaply in Australia than power from either coal or natural gas — and solar and other forms of renewable energy aren’t far behind.
Older coal-fired power plants from the 70s and 80s still compete at lower prices than renewables — but only because their construction costs have depreciated. For the deployment of any new power generation in Australia, renewables now appear to be the way to go.
Australia currently charges polluters $23 in Australian dollars per metric ton of carbon they emit, but the study concluded that wind power would still undercut fossil fuels even without that correction of the market’s failure to properly build in the costs of carbon pollution....Climate Progress
In Australia, Wind Power Is Already Cheaper Than Fossil Fuels, And Solar Is Right Behind
Jeff Spross
2 comments:
This is big news and encouraging, but development of fusion energy would be the ultimate game changer.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/09/fusion-energy-breaking-even/
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/19/in-defense-of-sustained-research-on-fusion/
A recent story that was commonly misunderstood on the Twitterverse was analysis by Bloomberg New Energy Finance which suggested that wind power is now cheaper per Megawatt-hour than new fossil fuel power plants.
The misunderstanding was over that word “new”. Today’s existing stock of coal- and gas-fired power stations are still the cheapest way to get power to the grid. What BNEF was telling the world was that investment in new “dirty” electricity will be hard to come by, since wind is apparently a better investment. Since new wind is cheaper per Megawatt-hour than new coal, it will return more income to its backers.
Extract from http://ausvotes2013.com/2013/02/12/getting-rid-of-coal-fired-power-the-market-might-overtake-the-greens/
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