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Credit Suisse Projects ~85% Of US Energy Demand Growth Coming From Renewables Through 2025
Article reproduced in full under Creative Commons license
Originally published by CleanTechnica
http://cleantechnica.com/2014/01/01/credit-suisse-projects-85-us-energy-growth-coming-renewables-2025/
Credit Suisse Projects ~85% Of US Energy Demand Growth Coming From Renewables Through 2025
Zachary Shahan
Credit Suisse on December 20 released a report with some quite bullish projections regarding renewable energy growth and generation in the United States, which someone in the solar industry kindly passed on to me. Here’s the short summary:
What percentage of future growth does Credit Suisse say might come from renewables? About 85%.
?zoom=2&resize=570%2C704
Solar PV’s rapid cost drop. Credit: Bloomberg New Energy Finance
Other key points are that falling wind and solar costs make them competitive with natural gas, even ignoring externalities. As a result, Credit Suisse has cut its natural gas projections considerably. “We estimate renewables slowing the rate of natural gas demand growth from power generation to <0.5 bcf/d through 2020 versus our prior estimate of 1.0-1.2 bcf/d even when taking into account planned coal plant shutdowns and assumed nuclear plant retirements.”
I think this report and the revisions implicitly highlight something very interesting that is going on in the energy industry. Renewable energy costs are primarily based on the cost of the technologies themselves, while fossil fuel costs are largely based on the fuel sources. As renewable energy grows, the technology costs come down. In the case of fossil fuels, increasing demand brings the price of these finite fuels up. Forecasts should take this into account, but they routinely seem to underestimate renewable technology cost drops, and thus also underestimate renewable energy growth. Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, and others that are a bit better at these projections are quickly shifting their forecasts to catch up with the renewable energy revolution we’ve been seeing. This new report from Credit Suisse analysts is certainly one of the most positive I’ve seen. The title of the first section says it all: “Renewables Are Economic and Disruptive to Conventional Markets.”
Credit Suisse analysts see Renewable Energy Standards (RES) as driving much of the coming growth, but they aren’t shy about saying (repeatedly) that renewables are also now cost competitive, and that technology improvements just keep advancing their prospects.
“We think old-line arguments against renewables – too expensive, too intermittent, too remote – will continue to fade, allowing a resource base that is underappreciated in the market but is positioned to have a broad impact on power and energy markets.”
The report projects that wind power, which is exceptionally cheap, will account for about 80% of the renewable energy growth, while solar will account for the other 20% or so. It sees a doubling of installed US wind power between 2012 and 2020, while it sees solar increasing 11 times over — starting from a much smaller installed capacity, of course. Together, solar and wind’s combined market share is projected to grow from ~4% to ~9%. By 2025, Credit Suisse projects that renewables will account for ~12% of US electricity generation.
Key drivers of the increasing competitiveness from wind and solar are a bit different in each of the industries. Wind farms have become a lot more effective at capturing energy from the wind and turning it into electricity. “Wind utilization rates have increased by 15-20 percentage points, with new machines in the same wind resource yielding 50-55% utilization rates from 30-35% in 2007 due to improvements in turbine design, taller towers / bigger blades, and better wind modeling. Higher utilization has led to dramatic drops in levelized costs with many new projects clearing at ~$30/MWh (Exhibit 5-Exhibit 6), in effect ‘creating’ natural gas under 20 year PPAs at less than $3/MMBtu.”
In the case of solar, it’s a story that CleanTechnica readers should be very familiar with — the price of solar technology has fallen off a cliff. “Solar capital costs have continued to bend the cost curve with utility scale PV today at ~$2000 per KW of capacity from $3250 in 2010, lowering levelized costs for utility scale solar to $65-80/MWh from well over $100/MWh and bringing solar to price parity with newbuild natural gas peakers.” Efficiency improvements have also helped solar on this front.
Yes, solar costs came down due to massive oversupply of polysilicon, solar cells, and solar panels. However, as demand has come to match supply again, costs have remained down. In fact, most solar market research firms project that the costs will keep climbing down in the coming few to several years. Furthermore, many big efforts to bring down the soft costs of solar are also now in motion, as these are the costs that make US solar much more expensive than German solar and are now taking up a huge chunk of the solar price pie.
As we’ve written and read numerous times in the past year, all of this also means some hurt for utilities and fossil fuel generators. Renewables are expected to result in lower power prices than were previously projected, while fossil fuel plants will not be able to sell as much of their (more expensive) electricity to the grid, cutting into their profits.
Here’s a snippet regarding the power prices: “Using our bottom-up power market models, the risks we see to power markets are rooted in a slower market recovery as more (and bottom of the stack) generation is added leading to a fundamental step down in power prices $1-2/MWh or ~5% relative to a scenario without significant renewables growth, as the overall supply curve is ‘pushed to the right’ with lower cost renewables added.”
And here’s one regarding the threat to fossil fuel generators: “while generation output will be lower, the operating costs are broadly fixed meaning that coal and natural gas plants will produce less revenues without a change in cost structure, leading to some minor degradation in EPS.”
The entire report is very interesting, with many details that are surely useful to investors and industry insiders. But the overall trend is clear as a sunny day: the future is renewables.
Zachary Shahan
Credit Suisse on December 20 released a report with some quite bullish projections regarding renewable energy growth and generation in the United States, which someone in the solar industry kindly passed on to me. Here’s the short summary:
Our take: We see an opportunity for renewable energy to take an increasing share of total US power generation, coming in response to state Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) and propelled by more competitive costs against conventional generation. We can see the growth in renewables being transformative against conventional expectations with renewables meeting the vast majority of future power demand growth, weighing on market clearing power prices in competitive power markets, appreciably slowing the rate of demand growth for natural gas from the power sector, and requiring significant investment in new renewables.
What percentage of future growth does Credit Suisse say might come from renewables? About 85%.
Renewables will meet most of US demand growth. We estimate that ~85% of future demand growth for power through 2025 (including the impact of coal plant retirements) could be met by renewable generation with compliance to the existing 30 mandatory and 8 voluntary RPS programs. From this we would see over 100 GW of new renewable capacity additions with wind and solar market share more than doubling from 2012 to 2025.
?zoom=2&resize=570%2C704
Solar PV’s rapid cost drop. Credit: Bloomberg New Energy Finance
Other key points are that falling wind and solar costs make them competitive with natural gas, even ignoring externalities. As a result, Credit Suisse has cut its natural gas projections considerably. “We estimate renewables slowing the rate of natural gas demand growth from power generation to <0.5 bcf/d through 2020 versus our prior estimate of 1.0-1.2 bcf/d even when taking into account planned coal plant shutdowns and assumed nuclear plant retirements.”
I think this report and the revisions implicitly highlight something very interesting that is going on in the energy industry. Renewable energy costs are primarily based on the cost of the technologies themselves, while fossil fuel costs are largely based on the fuel sources. As renewable energy grows, the technology costs come down. In the case of fossil fuels, increasing demand brings the price of these finite fuels up. Forecasts should take this into account, but they routinely seem to underestimate renewable technology cost drops, and thus also underestimate renewable energy growth. Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, and others that are a bit better at these projections are quickly shifting their forecasts to catch up with the renewable energy revolution we’ve been seeing. This new report from Credit Suisse analysts is certainly one of the most positive I’ve seen. The title of the first section says it all: “Renewables Are Economic and Disruptive to Conventional Markets.”
Credit Suisse analysts see Renewable Energy Standards (RES) as driving much of the coming growth, but they aren’t shy about saying (repeatedly) that renewables are also now cost competitive, and that technology improvements just keep advancing their prospects.
“We think old-line arguments against renewables – too expensive, too intermittent, too remote – will continue to fade, allowing a resource base that is underappreciated in the market but is positioned to have a broad impact on power and energy markets.”
The report projects that wind power, which is exceptionally cheap, will account for about 80% of the renewable energy growth, while solar will account for the other 20% or so. It sees a doubling of installed US wind power between 2012 and 2020, while it sees solar increasing 11 times over — starting from a much smaller installed capacity, of course. Together, solar and wind’s combined market share is projected to grow from ~4% to ~9%. By 2025, Credit Suisse projects that renewables will account for ~12% of US electricity generation.
Key drivers of the increasing competitiveness from wind and solar are a bit different in each of the industries. Wind farms have become a lot more effective at capturing energy from the wind and turning it into electricity. “Wind utilization rates have increased by 15-20 percentage points, with new machines in the same wind resource yielding 50-55% utilization rates from 30-35% in 2007 due to improvements in turbine design, taller towers / bigger blades, and better wind modeling. Higher utilization has led to dramatic drops in levelized costs with many new projects clearing at ~$30/MWh (Exhibit 5-Exhibit 6), in effect ‘creating’ natural gas under 20 year PPAs at less than $3/MMBtu.”
In the case of solar, it’s a story that CleanTechnica readers should be very familiar with — the price of solar technology has fallen off a cliff. “Solar capital costs have continued to bend the cost curve with utility scale PV today at ~$2000 per KW of capacity from $3250 in 2010, lowering levelized costs for utility scale solar to $65-80/MWh from well over $100/MWh and bringing solar to price parity with newbuild natural gas peakers.” Efficiency improvements have also helped solar on this front.
Yes, solar costs came down due to massive oversupply of polysilicon, solar cells, and solar panels. However, as demand has come to match supply again, costs have remained down. In fact, most solar market research firms project that the costs will keep climbing down in the coming few to several years. Furthermore, many big efforts to bring down the soft costs of solar are also now in motion, as these are the costs that make US solar much more expensive than German solar and are now taking up a huge chunk of the solar price pie.
As we’ve written and read numerous times in the past year, all of this also means some hurt for utilities and fossil fuel generators. Renewables are expected to result in lower power prices than were previously projected, while fossil fuel plants will not be able to sell as much of their (more expensive) electricity to the grid, cutting into their profits.
Here’s a snippet regarding the power prices: “Using our bottom-up power market models, the risks we see to power markets are rooted in a slower market recovery as more (and bottom of the stack) generation is added leading to a fundamental step down in power prices $1-2/MWh or ~5% relative to a scenario without significant renewables growth, as the overall supply curve is ‘pushed to the right’ with lower cost renewables added.”
And here’s one regarding the threat to fossil fuel generators: “while generation output will be lower, the operating costs are broadly fixed meaning that coal and natural gas plants will produce less revenues without a change in cost structure, leading to some minor degradation in EPS.”
The entire report is very interesting, with many details that are surely useful to investors and industry insiders. But the overall trend is clear as a sunny day: the future is renewables.
Read more at http://cleantechnica.com/2014/01/01/credit-suisse-projects-85-us-energy-growth-coming-renewables-2025/#xluxFE904PlWkKEO.99
Comments are, as usual, worth the read.
41 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Here, specifically are the claims you are defending:
Better, but not enough to change the outcome, ...
85% of the 'growth demand' of power generation does not address the present demand base we are starting from.
All energy used in the US including transportation was over 5 gigatons in 2012 with the world putting 31 gigatons into the atmosphere. Just curbing the growth of demand doesn't change a thing.
85% of the 'growth demand' of power generation does not address the present demand base we are starting from.
All energy used in the US including transportation was over 5 gigatons in 2012 with the world putting 31 gigatons into the atmosphere. Just curbing the growth of demand doesn't change a thing.
Yes, it does. It indicates a definite change in the fundamental economics of the global energy supply and that translates into a fundamental change in the structure of our energy supply.
The mid-late 2020's is when the latest estimates say the global economy needs to be carbon free, to maintain the not very safe 2*C target for 2100. The recent research indicating errors in the climate sensitivity models move those estimates even further forward.
That is another extraordinary claim. It may be true, but we should have more than the unsupported word of someone that only a couple of months ago didn't know that O2 impacted the amount of CO2 we get from carbon fuels.
Now back to the first point and your latest offering. The fact that the trajectory of renewables is to provide 85% of US demand growth certainly contradicts the EIA and IEA projections of growth for renewables, doesn't it? But that apparently doesn't impact your analysis for some reason. (It could be that you don't actually have an analysis but we'll set that aside for the moment.)
Here is some information you might want to familiarize yourself with: The EIA and the IEA are notorious for serving the interests of the fossil fuel industry. Their projections regarding adoption of renewable technology (including the investment landscape) has been horrible since ... forever.
That isn't just my opinion, either. It became so bad that a couple of years ago the International Renewable ENergy Agency (IRENA) was formed to address the shortcomings inherent in the International Energy Agency's (IEA) mandate.
In fact, all the conservative forecasts about the progress of alternative energy sources have consistently been, not only wrong, but grossly wrong. Reviewing the issue shows that high renewable growth scenarios have consistently proven to be far more accurate than conservative growth scenarios. (Under 'Fair Use' I've included the excerpt from the free downloadable International Renewable Energy Association's (IRENA) 2013 Global Futures Report. This 76 page non-technical report is
"a pioneering publication that provides access to the range of credible possibilities on the future of renewable energy. The report is based on interviews with over 170 leading experts around the world and the projections of 50 recently published scenarios. The report can serve as a tool for dialogue and discussion on future options, and compliments well the REN21 Renewables Global Status Report.
Available here:
http://www.ren21.net/REN21Activities/GlobalFuturesReport.aspx
In terms of historic credibility, the Greenpeace estimate has far more standing than the EIA, which is even more conservative than the IEA.
(pgs 15-17) The world gets about 17–18% of its energy from renewables, including about 9% from “traditional biomass” and about 8% from “modern renewables.”a, b The “traditional” share has been relatively stable for many years, while the “modern” share has grown rapidly since the late 1990s. During the 1990s, projections of renewable energy that were considered most credible, for example by the International Energy Agency (IEA), foresaw shares of modern renewables reaching no more than 5–10% into the far future, given the policies and technologies existing at the time. As a result of the market, policy, and technology developments of the past 15 years, those early projections have already been reached.
In 2011, about 30 countries were getting 20% or more of their total energy from renewables, and some as high as 50%.c (The “total energy” metric counts electricity, heating/cooling, and transport.) Countries in this category include Austria, Brazil, Chile, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, the Philippines, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, Uganda, and Uruguay. The European Union (EU) as a whole and the United States both stood at 12%. France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and several other countries were above 10%, and Japan was at 6%. Furthermore, in 2011, about half of all new electric power capacity added worldwide was renewable—as much capacity as fossil and nuclear combined. In interviews, industry experts emphasized that historical thinking and projections about renewable energy remaining a “fringe” techno- logy no longer make sense.
During the late 1990s and early 2000s, as renewable energy started to grow more rapidly than many had predicted, new scenarios emerged that showed much higher long-term shares of renewables. Notable among these was a “Sustained Growth” scenario by the Shell oil company that showed 50% of global energy from renewables by 2050, a figure that shocked many at the time. The IEA also released a report, Energy to 2050: Scenarios for a Sustainable Future, that outlined a “Sustainable Development” scenario with a 35% share from renewables.
By the mid-2000s, a larger number of scenarios emerged showing 30–50% shares. Prominent among these was the first (2006) edition of the IEA Energy Technology Perspectives (ETP), which gave a set of “Accelerated Technology” scenarios for 2050. In these sce- narios, an intermediate case showed a 24% share, and the highest case showed a 30% share. A few years earlier, the German Advisory Council on Global Change (2004) had published its “Exemplary Path” scenario that projected a 50% share by 2050. And in 2007, the first edition of the Energy [R]evolution scenario by Greenpeace and the European Renewable Energy Council (EREC) likewise projected a 50% share by 2050
The most recent scenarios, published in 2010–2012, could be viewed in three main groups: “conservative,” “moderate,” and “high renewables.”5 See Figure 1 for the wide variation between groups. (See Annex 2 for a list of the recent global, regional, and national scenarios covered in this report, including full citations correspond- ing to scenario abbreviations used throughout the text, and see the online supplement, “Scenario Profiles Report,” for summaries of these scenarios.)
Conservative scenarios in the 15–20% range can be found pub- lished by oil companies, some industry groups, the IEA, and the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). For example, BP’s Energy Outlook 2030 (2012) and ExxonMobil’s Outlook for Energy: A View to 2040 (2012) both show an under-15% share by 2030–2040. The EIA (2011) shows 14% by 2035, and the IEA’s World Energy Outlook (WEO, 2012), in its “New Policies” scenario, shows 18% by 2035. Conservative viewpoints by oil and gas companies mirror such conservative scenarios. These companies continue to make state- ments such as “fossil fuels will continue to provide the majority of the world’s energy supplies for decades to come” (Chevron), and “oil’s preeminence in the global energy mix will remain unchallenged in the foreseeable future” (Total).
Moderate scenarios show long-term renewable energy shares in the 25–40% range. Two IEA examples are the IEA WEO (2012) “450” carbon-stabilization scenario, which shows a 27% renewable energy
16 share by 2035, and the IEA ETP (2012) “2DS” scenario, which shows a 41% share by 2050. The IPCC Special Report on Renewable Energy (2011) synthesized the results of over 160 climate-mitigation scenarios (most from 2009–2010) and found that over half of them project shares above 27% by 2050—a large group in the “moderate” category.7 (And many show very high absolute amounts of renewables, too, under high global energy demand scenarios; see Box 2.)
High-renewables scenarios project 50–95% energy shares of renewables by 2050. For example, the GEA Global Energy Assessment (2012) shows up to 75% in the highest of its “Efficiency” cases and a median share of 55%. The “ACES” scenario by the IEA multilateral program Renewable Energy Technology Deployment (2010) shows 55%. And among the group of 160 scenarios surveyed by the IPCC (2011), there are a number in the range of 50–80%. The biennial Greenpeace Energy [R]evolution scenario, which has become the most widely recognized and thorough projection made by renew- able energy advocates, shows 82%.a At the highest end, WWF (2011) shows a 95% share.8
The credibility of such high-renewables scenarios has increased over the years, following a long tradition of “100%” scenarios dating back to the 1970s by renewable energy advocates and visionaries. The difference is that now, given the scope of government policy targets and market growth in recent years, such high-renewables scenarios are grounded in growing present-day markets.9 (See Endnote 9 for further discussion of “credibility” in the context of scenarios.)
In interviews, most industry experts believed that the world could reach at least 30–50% shares of renewables in the long term. (See also Box 3 for a recent global goal of 30–35%.) And some experts advocated for 100% or near-100% futures. European experts cited considerably higher shares just for Europe (see following section), with many saying that Europe could attain 50–70% shares.10 (Also see following sections for more expert opinions based on individual sectors.)
In 2011, about 30 countries were getting 20% or more of their total energy from renewables, and some as high as 50%.c (The “total energy” metric counts electricity, heating/cooling, and transport.) Countries in this category include Austria, Brazil, Chile, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, the Philippines, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, Uganda, and Uruguay. The European Union (EU) as a whole and the United States both stood at 12%. France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and several other countries were above 10%, and Japan was at 6%. Furthermore, in 2011, about half of all new electric power capacity added worldwide was renewable—as much capacity as fossil and nuclear combined. In interviews, industry experts emphasized that historical thinking and projections about renewable energy remaining a “fringe” techno- logy no longer make sense.
During the late 1990s and early 2000s, as renewable energy started to grow more rapidly than many had predicted, new scenarios emerged that showed much higher long-term shares of renewables. Notable among these was a “Sustained Growth” scenario by the Shell oil company that showed 50% of global energy from renewables by 2050, a figure that shocked many at the time. The IEA also released a report, Energy to 2050: Scenarios for a Sustainable Future, that outlined a “Sustainable Development” scenario with a 35% share from renewables.
By the mid-2000s, a larger number of scenarios emerged showing 30–50% shares. Prominent among these was the first (2006) edition of the IEA Energy Technology Perspectives (ETP), which gave a set of “Accelerated Technology” scenarios for 2050. In these sce- narios, an intermediate case showed a 24% share, and the highest case showed a 30% share. A few years earlier, the German Advisory Council on Global Change (2004) had published its “Exemplary Path” scenario that projected a 50% share by 2050. And in 2007, the first edition of the Energy [R]evolution scenario by Greenpeace and the European Renewable Energy Council (EREC) likewise projected a 50% share by 2050
The most recent scenarios, published in 2010–2012, could be viewed in three main groups: “conservative,” “moderate,” and “high renewables.”5 See Figure 1 for the wide variation between groups. (See Annex 2 for a list of the recent global, regional, and national scenarios covered in this report, including full citations correspond- ing to scenario abbreviations used throughout the text, and see the online supplement, “Scenario Profiles Report,” for summaries of these scenarios.)
Conservative scenarios in the 15–20% range can be found pub- lished by oil companies, some industry groups, the IEA, and the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). For example, BP’s Energy Outlook 2030 (2012) and ExxonMobil’s Outlook for Energy: A View to 2040 (2012) both show an under-15% share by 2030–2040. The EIA (2011) shows 14% by 2035, and the IEA’s World Energy Outlook (WEO, 2012), in its “New Policies” scenario, shows 18% by 2035. Conservative viewpoints by oil and gas companies mirror such conservative scenarios. These companies continue to make state- ments such as “fossil fuels will continue to provide the majority of the world’s energy supplies for decades to come” (Chevron), and “oil’s preeminence in the global energy mix will remain unchallenged in the foreseeable future” (Total).
Moderate scenarios show long-term renewable energy shares in the 25–40% range. Two IEA examples are the IEA WEO (2012) “450” carbon-stabilization scenario, which shows a 27% renewable energy
16 share by 2035, and the IEA ETP (2012) “2DS” scenario, which shows a 41% share by 2050. The IPCC Special Report on Renewable Energy (2011) synthesized the results of over 160 climate-mitigation scenarios (most from 2009–2010) and found that over half of them project shares above 27% by 2050—a large group in the “moderate” category.7 (And many show very high absolute amounts of renewables, too, under high global energy demand scenarios; see Box 2.)
High-renewables scenarios project 50–95% energy shares of renewables by 2050. For example, the GEA Global Energy Assessment (2012) shows up to 75% in the highest of its “Efficiency” cases and a median share of 55%. The “ACES” scenario by the IEA multilateral program Renewable Energy Technology Deployment (2010) shows 55%. And among the group of 160 scenarios surveyed by the IPCC (2011), there are a number in the range of 50–80%. The biennial Greenpeace Energy [R]evolution scenario, which has become the most widely recognized and thorough projection made by renew- able energy advocates, shows 82%.a At the highest end, WWF (2011) shows a 95% share.8
The credibility of such high-renewables scenarios has increased over the years, following a long tradition of “100%” scenarios dating back to the 1970s by renewable energy advocates and visionaries. The difference is that now, given the scope of government policy targets and market growth in recent years, such high-renewables scenarios are grounded in growing present-day markets.9 (See Endnote 9 for further discussion of “credibility” in the context of scenarios.)
In interviews, most industry experts believed that the world could reach at least 30–50% shares of renewables in the long term. (See also Box 3 for a recent global goal of 30–35%.) And some experts advocated for 100% or near-100% futures. European experts cited considerably higher shares just for Europe (see following section), with many saying that Europe could attain 50–70% shares.10 (Also see following sections for more expert opinions based on individual sectors.)
You made the affirmative statement that it can't be done.
I offered the example of WW2 which is absolute proof that we can, in fact, ramp up the required technologies at a rate that can decarbonize the global economy easily within 20 years - potentially as fast as 10 years.
What we accomplished then is a compelling refutation of your assertion.
Now you want to use a forecast that simply has no track record of being correct. Sorry, no. This isn't the first time we've been down this path on DU.
Conventional Wisdom About Clean Energy Is Still Way Out of Date
“It’s not 1990 anymore.”
CHRIS NELDER: MAY 9, 2013
"We're fifteen to twenty years out of date in how we think about renewables," said Dr. Eric Martinot to an audience at the first Pathways to 100% Renewables Conference held April 16 in San Francisco. "It's not 1990 anymore."
Dr. Martinot and his team recently compiled their 2013 Renewables Global Futures report from two years of research in which they conducted interviews with 170 experts and policymakers from fifteen countries, including local city officials and stakeholders from more than twenty cities. They also reviewed more than 50 recently published scenarios by credible international organizations, energy companies, and research institutes, along with government policy targets for renewable energy, and various corporate reports and energy literature.
The report observes that "[t]he history of energy scenarios is full of similar projections for renewable energy that proved too low by a factor of 10, or were achieved a decade earlier than expected." For example, the International Energy Agency's 2000 estimate for wind power in 2010 was 34 gigawatts, while the actual level was 200 gigawatts. The World Bank's 1996 estimate for China was 9 gigawatts of wind and 0.5 gigawatts for solar PV by 2020, but by 2011 the country had already achieved 62 gigawatts of wind and 3 gigawatts of PV.
Dr. Martinot's conclusion from this exhaustive survey? "The conservative scenarios are simply no longer credible."
There is now a yawning gap between "conservative" scenarios and more optimistic ones, as illustrated in this chart contrasting scenarios published in 2012 by entities like the IEA and ExxonMobil with those offered by groups like the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (an international scientific policy research organization), Greenpeace, and the World Wildlife Fund...
“It’s not 1990 anymore.”
CHRIS NELDER: MAY 9, 2013
"We're fifteen to twenty years out of date in how we think about renewables," said Dr. Eric Martinot to an audience at the first Pathways to 100% Renewables Conference held April 16 in San Francisco. "It's not 1990 anymore."
Dr. Martinot and his team recently compiled their 2013 Renewables Global Futures report from two years of research in which they conducted interviews with 170 experts and policymakers from fifteen countries, including local city officials and stakeholders from more than twenty cities. They also reviewed more than 50 recently published scenarios by credible international organizations, energy companies, and research institutes, along with government policy targets for renewable energy, and various corporate reports and energy literature.
The report observes that "[t]he history of energy scenarios is full of similar projections for renewable energy that proved too low by a factor of 10, or were achieved a decade earlier than expected." For example, the International Energy Agency's 2000 estimate for wind power in 2010 was 34 gigawatts, while the actual level was 200 gigawatts. The World Bank's 1996 estimate for China was 9 gigawatts of wind and 0.5 gigawatts for solar PV by 2020, but by 2011 the country had already achieved 62 gigawatts of wind and 3 gigawatts of PV.
Dr. Martinot's conclusion from this exhaustive survey? "The conservative scenarios are simply no longer credible."
There is now a yawning gap between "conservative" scenarios and more optimistic ones, as illustrated in this chart contrasting scenarios published in 2012 by entities like the IEA and ExxonMobil with those offered by groups like the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (an international scientific policy research organization), Greenpeace, and the World Wildlife Fund...
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/conventional-wisdom-about-clean-energy-is-way-out-of-date?utm_source=Solar&utm_medium=Picture&utm_campaign=GTMDaily
There is a lot of negativity on this board and a great deal of it is aimed at the timetable for deploying renewables. The study in the OP confirms my own research on this topic - research that forms the basis for my outlook on what is coming down the pike for our energy future.
The thoughts I share on the our energy future are often termed "overly optimistic" (to use the most polite phrase), and inevitably the person holding that view will buttresses their argument with the IEA or EIA numbers. I hope this post gives some food for thought for those who misuse the word Cornucopian to let me know they think I'm being unrealistic. One particular poster, in fact, just loves to use the EIA, BP and IEA numbers to create graphs reflecting his feelings of gloom and despair.
Let's recap the numbers above:
"...projections for renewable energy that proved too low by a factor of 10, or were achieved a decade earlier than expected"
International Energy Agency says in 2000 that by 2010 wind power will be at 34 gigawatts; actual level was 200 gigawatts.
1996 World Bank estimate for China by 2020:
9 gigawatts of wind and 0.5 gigawatts for solar PV
China in 2013 they have 75GW of wind and 10GW of solar,
7 years ahead of schedule and wind is 8X+ while solar is 20X. How much do you think they will exceed World Bank predictions by the time 2020 actually gets here? They say 200GW of wind by 2020 and they are on target for 35GW of PV by 2015. Is it a small fraction of their energy supply? Yes, true; but it is damning as part of the evidence on the credibility of conservative estimates for growth in renewables.
So when you look at charts like this:
Or tables like this:
Remember who has a record of poor predictions. That isn't saying we are going to address this threat as fast as we need to, but at least let's start the discussion about what we are going to do with a realistic eye on what is good analysis and what isn't.
All New Generation in Australia Will Be Renewables Through 2020
By Katherine Tweed
Posted 20 Dec 2013 | 17:07 GMT
All new electricity generation in Australia will come from renewable energy through 2020, according to a new report from the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) [PDF].
The bulk of the new power will be wind, with large-scale scale solar photovoltaics comprising about about 13 percent and biomass making up the rest at 3 percent. There are nearly 15 800 megawatts of proposed wind generation projects, according to the AEMO. More than 780 MW of the wind power is expected to come online in 2014-2015.
new australia generation
A carbon tax has been in effect Down Under since 2012, but the government could repeal it. Even without the tax, coal power will still be retired as more renewables come online, according to the report. By 2020, there could be 3700 MW less coal-fired generation, about 13 percent of the country's total coal power production.
In the short term, however, AEMO is focused on the challenges of bringing renewables online, which can introduce transmission and distribution issues onto the grid. Intermittent renewable energy can cause instability and can require more ancillary services such as frequency regulation to offset the variable power coming from wind or solar. The AEMO will include transmission connection point forecasts into its electricity forecasts moving forward and is reviewing transmission projects.
The market operator is also developing an independent assessment...
By Katherine Tweed
Posted 20 Dec 2013 | 17:07 GMT
All new electricity generation in Australia will come from renewable energy through 2020, according to a new report from the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) [PDF].
The bulk of the new power will be wind, with large-scale scale solar photovoltaics comprising about about 13 percent and biomass making up the rest at 3 percent. There are nearly 15 800 megawatts of proposed wind generation projects, according to the AEMO. More than 780 MW of the wind power is expected to come online in 2014-2015.
new australia generation
A carbon tax has been in effect Down Under since 2012, but the government could repeal it. Even without the tax, coal power will still be retired as more renewables come online, according to the report. By 2020, there could be 3700 MW less coal-fired generation, about 13 percent of the country's total coal power production.
In the short term, however, AEMO is focused on the challenges of bringing renewables online, which can introduce transmission and distribution issues onto the grid. Intermittent renewable energy can cause instability and can require more ancillary services such as frequency regulation to offset the variable power coming from wind or solar. The AEMO will include transmission connection point forecasts into its electricity forecasts moving forward and is reviewing transmission projects.
The market operator is also developing an independent assessment...
http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/renewables/all-new-generation-in-australia-will-be-renewables-through-2020
Report:
http://www.pennenergy.com/content/dam/Pennenergy/online-articles/2013/December/2013_NTNDP.pdf.pdf
