{"id":66846,"date":"2024-02-15T09:33:15","date_gmt":"2024-02-15T14:33:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=66846"},"modified":"2024-02-15T09:33:15","modified_gmt":"2024-02-15T14:33:15","slug":"renewables-are-not-the-cheapest-form-of-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=66846","title":{"rendered":"Renewables Are Not the Cheapest Form of Power"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Renewables Are Not the Cheapest Form of Power<\/span><\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\"Energy<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The CEO of TotalEnergies believes that the renewable transition will lead to higher\u2014not lower\u2014energy prices. That\u2019s a very different view from the popular belief that renewable energy prices are falling so fast that electric power will become ever-cheaper.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think that fundamentally this energy transition will mean a higher price of energy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that there is a theory which says renewables are cheaper, so it will be a lower price. We don\u2019t think so because a system where you [have] more renewable intermittency is less efficient\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009so we think it\u2019s an interesting field to invest in.<\/p>\n

Patrick Pouyann\u00e9<\/a><\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Many energy analysts and renewable promoters see things differently.<\/p>\n

\u201cRenewables are by far the cheapest form of power today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Francesco La Camera, Director-General of IRENA<\/a><\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

La Camera\u2019s statement is based on a\u00a02021 report by IRENA (Internation<\/a>a<\/a>l Renewable Energy Agency)<\/a>\u00a0that evaluated the\u00a0levelized costs for renewable energy<\/a>\u00a0sources. The problem is that IRENA\u2019s study only evaluated\u00a0generation<\/em>\u00a0costs and did not account for electric power\u00a0backup and storage costs<\/em>. Since wind and solar are intermittent sources of electricity, the cost of natural gas backup or battery storage must be included in their levelized cost.<\/p>\n

Lazard<\/a>\u00a0published a\u00a0report in 2023 that includes backup and storage costs<\/a>. The data indicates that electric power costs from wind and solar are about 21% more than from combined-cycle natural gas and 44% more than from coal (Figure 1). At first glance, that doesn\u2019t seem like an unreasonable premium to pay for cleaner electric power.<\/p>\n

\"The
Figure 1. The levelized cost for electric power from wind and solar with backup is 21% more than from combined-cycle natural gas and 44% more than from coal. Source: Lazard & Labyrinth Consulting Services, Inc.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Renewables Are Not the Cheapest Form of Power The CEO of TotalEnergies believes that the renewable transition will lead to higher\u2014not lower\u2014energy prices. That\u2019s a very different view from the popular belief that renewable energy prices are falling so fast that electric power will become ever-cheaper. \u201cWe think that fundamentally this energy transition will mean […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[8195,5930,33927,674],"class_list":["post-66846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-energy-2","tag-art-berman","tag-energy-transition","tag-non-renewable-renewable-energy-harvesting-technology","tag-renewable-energy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=66846"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66846\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66847,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66846\/revisions\/66847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=66846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=66846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=66846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}