Page 11 - AfrElec Week 26

AfrElec RENEWABLES AfrElec

Half of green projects now

cheaper than coal, IRENA says

GLOBAL MORE than half of the renewable capacity potential to stimulate the global economy and
added in 2019 achieved lower power costs than get people back to work. Renewable investments
the cheapest new coal plants, a new report from are stable, cost-effective and attractive, offering
the International Renewables Energy Agency consistent and predictable returns while deliv-
(IRENA) has found. ering benefits to the wider economy,” he added.
This makes new and most existing coal gener- Renewable electricity costs have fallen
ation environmentally and economically unjus- sharply over the past decade, driven by improv-
tifiable, IRENA warned, with up to 1,200GW of ing technologies, economies of scale, increas-
existing coal capacity costing more to operate by ingly competitive supply chains and growing
2021 than new utility-scale solar PV, the report developer experience.
found. Since 2010, utility-scale solar PV power has
The report, called Renewable Power Gener- shown the sharpest cost decline at 82%, followed
ation Costs in 2019, said that on average, new by concentrating solar power (CSP) at 47%,
solar photovoltaic (PV) and onshore wind power onshore wind at 39% and offshore wind at 29%.
costs less than keeping many existing coal plants Costs for solar and wind power technologies
in operation. have also continued to fall year on year. Electric-
In its report, IRENA examined 7,000 renew- ity costs from utility-scale solar PV fell 13% in
able generation projects from around the world 2019, reaching a global average of $0.068 per
and used data from 10,700 auctions and power kWh.
purchase agreements (PPAs) for renewables. Onshore and offshore wind both declined
Replacing the costliest 500GW of coal with about 9%, reaching $0.053 per kWh and $0.115
solar PV and onshore wind in 2021 would cut per kWh respectively.
power system costs by up to $23bn every year “A global recovery strategy must be a green
and reduce annual emissions by around 1.8 giga- strategy,” La Camera added. “Renewables offer
tonnes (Gt) of carbon dioxide (CO2), equivalent a way to align short-term policy action with
to 5% of total global CO2 emissions in 2019. medium and long-term energy and climate
It would also yield an investment stimulus of goals. Renewables must be the backbone of
$940bn, which is equal to around 1% of global national efforts to restart economies in the wake
GDP. of the [coronavirus] COVID-19 outbreak. With
“We have reached an important turning the right policies in place, falling renewable
point in the energy transition. The case for new power costs can shift markets and contribute
and much of the existing coal power genera- greatly towards a green recovery.”
tion is both environmentally and economically With the world now coming out of lockdown
unjustifiable,” said Francesco La Camera, Direc- and move towards the new, post-COVID nor-
tor-General of IRENA. mality, renewable energy must form a key part of
“Renewable energy is increasingly the cheap- global economic stimulus measures, the report
est source of new electricity, offering tremendous argues.™

Week 26 02•July•2020 www. NEWSBASE .com P11