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> Coal power: $4,074 > Solar PV with storage: $1,748 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#Capital_costs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C

by hnben 3y ago

> Coal power: $4,074 > Solar PV with storage: $1,748 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#Capital_costs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#... and for the fun of it > Nuclear $6,695-7,547 regarding you question: In large scale projects there is a lot of inertia, especially in less developed areas. Many of these places have just build a conventional grid, and are in no situation to upgrade to renewables. That being said: some non-industrial countries are actually moving fast towards adopting renewables (compared to developed countries). e.g. Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Brazil.

brutusborn 3y ago
Your link shows gas as the winner by a wide margin at $785. I'm interested what you mean about the 'conventional grid' preventing upgrades to renewables?
- jabradoodle 3y ago
  Worth noting that is initial capital costs of building the plant. Maintenance, fuel etc are not included, even before considering external costs such as poor health outcomes from pollution.
  - brutusborn 3y ago
    I didn't even notice that. I think I got blind sighted by the fact that the parent commenter went to the effort of googling the Wikipedia page for a source and it didn't even support their point. The more confident an online commenter is of their assertion, the lower the chances it is true.
    - hnben 3y ago
      LCOE is in the linked article as well, and it does paint a similar picture
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - jabradoodle 3y ago
        Because your comment is slightly ambiguous and who knows what LCOE is: > On average the levelized cost of electricity from utility scale solar power and onshore wind power is less than from coal and gas-fired power stations,[1]: TS-25 but this varies a lot depending on location.
- hnben 3y ago
  > conventional grid sorry, I should've said "conventional power generation". I mean it like "using old school tech, like coal and oil".
thedrbrian 3y ago
if you ignore the capacity factor >The first German Offshore Wind Park Alpha Ventus Offshore Wind Farm with a nameplate capacity of 60 MW cost €250 million (after an initial estimate of €190 million).[21] In 2012 it produced 268 Gigawatt-hours of electricity, achieving a capacity factor of just over 50%.[22] If the overnight cost is calculated for the nameplate capacity, it works out to €4167 per Kilowatt whereas if one takes into account the capacity factor, the figure needs to be roughly doubled.
- jabradoodle 3y ago
  Sure, but that number is capital costs of construction. It also ignores fuel costs, maintenance, external costs of pollution etc.
- XorNot 3y ago
  You also can't just plug capacity factor in and call it a day either: it is very difficult to black start the power grid if all your intermittents happen to be under producing at the same time and you can't shed load fast enough. In the case of most renewables, this fall off can happen very quickly. On a mixed grid this is fine because you just ask your gas plants to up their load contribution and they can do it because they can overbuild fairly cheaply - they just increase their moment to the moment fuel burn. On a theoretical grid which is carbon neutral, you've got a real problem answering that question (in fact on any grid with >30% intermittent renewables you've got a big problem). Storage doesn't save you here either - i.e. the cheapest, largest storage you can build is pumped hydro, but pumped hydro can only be "charged" at about half the rate it discharges. Catching up when you have an outage is not trivial (i.e. you have to overbuild by an enormous amount). You start adding all those problems together, and solar and wind stop looking "cheap" - they get away with being cheap because very much like coal, oil and gas, they avoid pricing in their own externalities (and no, you can't just ignore power grid outages - you lose the grid you lose water and sanitation in cities, and they "die" within a week).
  - Gasp0de 3y ago
    Batteries can save the grid in the short term (all those unused EVs standing around) and more and more loads are designed to be controllable by power grid operators. You're making this a bigger problem than it is. In Germany, many households are currently replacing their old fossil heating with heatpumps, and many of the heatpumps are equipped with technology that allows the grid operators to switch them off remotely within seconds.

by hnben 3y ago

brutusborn 3y ago

Your link shows gas as the winner by a wide margin at $785. I'm interested what you mean about the 'conventional grid' preventing upgrades to renewables?

jabradoodle 3y ago
Worth noting that is initial capital costs of building the plant. Maintenance, fuel etc are not included, even before considering external costs such as poor health outcomes from pollution.
- brutusborn 3y ago
  I didn't even notice that. I think I got blind sighted by the fact that the parent commenter went to the effort of googling the Wikipedia page for a source and it didn't even support their point. The more confident an online commenter is of their assertion, the lower the chances it is true.
  - hnben 3y ago
    LCOE is in the linked article as well, and it does paint a similar picture
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - jabradoodle 3y ago
      Because your comment is slightly ambiguous and who knows what LCOE is: > On average the levelized cost of electricity from utility scale solar power and onshore wind power is less than from coal and gas-fired power stations,[1]: TS-25 but this varies a lot depending on location.
hnben 3y ago
> conventional grid sorry, I should've said "conventional power generation". I mean it like "using old school tech, like coal and oil".

thedrbrian 3y ago

if you ignore the capacity factor >The first German Offshore Wind Park Alpha Ventus Offshore Wind Farm with a nameplate capacity of 60 MW cost €250 million (after an initial estimate of €190 million).[21] In 2012 it produced 268 Gigawatt-hours of electricity, achieving a capacity factor of just over 50%.[22] If the overnight cost is calculated for the nameplate capacity, it works out to €4167 per Kilowatt whereas if one takes into account the capacity factor, the figure needs to be roughly doubled.

jabradoodle 3y ago
Sure, but that number is capital costs of construction. It also ignores fuel costs, maintenance, external costs of pollution etc.
XorNot 3y ago
You also can't just plug capacity factor in and call it a day either: it is very difficult to black start the power grid if all your intermittents happen to be under producing at the same time and you can't shed load fast enough. In the case of most renewables, this fall off can happen very quickly. On a mixed grid this is fine because you just ask your gas plants to up their load contribution and they can do it because they can overbuild fairly cheaply - they just increase their moment to the moment fuel burn. On a theoretical grid which is carbon neutral, you've got a real problem answering that question (in fact on any grid with >30% intermittent renewables you've got a big problem). Storage doesn't save you here either - i.e. the cheapest, largest storage you can build is pumped hydro, but pumped hydro can only be "charged" at about half the rate it discharges. Catching up when you have an outage is not trivial (i.e. you have to overbuild by an enormous amount). You start adding all those problems together, and solar and wind stop looking "cheap" - they get away with being cheap because very much like coal, oil and gas, they avoid pricing in their own externalities (and no, you can't just ignore power grid outages - you lose the grid you lose water and sanitation in cities, and they "die" within a week).
- Gasp0de 3y ago
  Batteries can save the grid in the short term (all those unused EVs standing around) and more and more loads are designed to be controllable by power grid operators. You're making this a bigger problem than it is. In Germany, many households are currently replacing their old fossil heating with heatpumps, and many of the heatpumps are equipped with technology that allows the grid operators to switch them off remotely within seconds.