Estimating life-time costs for Renewable Energy in Europe
- Electricity generation by using gas-fired installations is significantly cheaper than Renewables in terms of both installation capital cost and Operation and Maintenance costs, even when accounting for the cost of fuel.
- The € 1.1 trillion capital costs already spent on Renewables in Europe would have been sufficient to re-equip the whole 1,000 Gigawatt European electricity generating fleet with Gas-fired power stations producing electricity for the grid effectively at ~90% capacity.
- The European Renewable fleet with a nominal nameplate output of ~ 212 Gigawatts only contributes ~ 38 Gigawatts to the European Grid, a capacity percentage at about 18%.
- The installation of the Renewables fleet as of 2014 has already lead to a 60 year lifetime financial commitment amounting to about €3.1 trillion: this is equivalent to the annual GDP of Germany.
- 60 year life-time costs of Onshore wind power range from 10 – 13 times more expensive than Gas-fired generation.
- 60 year life-time costs of Offshore wind power and Solar power range from 40 – 50 times more expensive than Gas-fired generation.
- during the 60 year life-time Gas-fired generators have a full-time productive capacity of about 90% whereas the combined capacity figures for Renewable Energy of only about 18% is achieved across all European Renewable installations.
- These notes make estimates of:
- the likely capital expenditure over 60 years
- the running costs including fuel costs, if applicable, over that time period
- the likely combined 60 year costs overall
- the ratios of Renewable financial performances compared to Gas-fired electricity generation.
Introduction
This article is concerned with the two main forms of weather-dependent Renewable Energy, Wind Power (Onshore and Offshore) and Photovoltaic solar power.
It accepts that the effective capital cost of weather-dependent Renewable installations range from 16 – 63 bn€ / Gigawatt for the electrical energy produced when their capability for productive contribution to the grid is taken into account. This compares with the installation cost of Gas-fired electricity generation of about 1bn€ / Gigawatt, produced for the grid.
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