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Politics : Politics of Energy -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (76797)	5/11/2017 1:30:41 PM
From: Eric	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86355

So you think your shale wells will last longer than the Sun converts hydrogen into helium?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (76797)	5/11/2017 1:41:17 PM
From: Eric	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86355

Making kilowatts of electrical power from oil is nuts. We don't do it in this country because it is so expensive. Oil simply cannot compete anymore! Just look at what utility costs used to be just a few years ago in Hawaii, $.38 per kWhr. Prices there and other islands, and most isolated areas in the world are dropping like a rock now that we are moving to wind power and PV's. Even NG can't compete in many areas of the world today! Eric Record Low Renewable Auction Prices Indicate Increasing Global Competitiveness, Says MAKE May 11th, 2017 by Joshua S Hill A new research note from MAKE Consulting has confirmed what many have said before, the record low prices being awarded at renewable energy auctions across the world throughout 2016 and 2017 are indicative of the increasing competitiveness of renewable energy technologies globally. MAKE Consulting, one of the leading renewable energy analyst groups, published a new Research Note this week looking into the levelized cost of electricity, or LCOE, of renewable energy technologies, examining the declining costs for wind and solar energy as well as other forms of power generation across fourteen key global markets. The Research Note compares the LCOE of wind and solar to natural gas, coal-fired power, nuclear, hydro, and geothermal, and found that continued technological improvements, economy of scale, and the growth of aggressive market competitions have all served to lower the LCOE of renewable energy technologies to the point where they are nearing competitiveness or are already competitive with traditional power technologies. Only a few years ago many of us felt that, while renewable energy technology was obviously the only sensible method moving forward, it might take a lot of governmental support to ease the world into a position where renewable energy technologies were considered efficient and economically viable. While there is and has been governmental support, what very few people saw coming, however, was the pace at which unsubsidized costs would plummet all on their own — thanks, as mentioned, to technological improvements, economy of scale, and the competitiveness of auctions. Just this month, Navigant Research published figures which showed that distributed solar PV prices had dropped from $2.28/W in 2015 to $1.89/W in 2016. Similarly, wind energy prices have narrowed so quickly and dramatically that we were all caught off guard earlier this year when DONG Energy and EnBw both won the rights to develop wind farms for no subsidy at all. Parallel to the declining costs of renewable energy technologies has been the added costs attributable to fossil fuel energy sources, thanks to increased environmental regulations and declining load factors, combining to reduce the cost effectiveness of fossil fuel technologies. There is of course regional and geographical variability to the LCOE of renewable energy technologies. The LCOE of wind and solar power in the US are both low, but further development is critical for prices to continue declining. Developing renewable energy markets such as those in the Americas fluctuate depending on which country we are talking about — Mexican wind and solar prices are cost competitive with gas-fired generation, while Brazil’s costs are much higher due to supply chain dynamics. In the Asia Pacific, the LCOE of onshore wind in China and India needs to drop further for national targets to be met under evolving market mechanisms in play there, while MAKE expects the European offshore market to experience significant improvement in LCOE over the next five years due to infrastructure investments in the North Sea. cleantechnica.com

To: Brumar89 who wrote (76797)	5/12/2017 9:21:40 AM
From: Eric	Respond to of 86355

India’s tariffs sink lower A downward trend for the solar tariffs in India continues, with a new record low produced in a tender for a 50 MW solar power plant in Rajasthan. May 11, 2017 Marija Djordjevic Markets & Policy Policy India Yann Forget / Wikimedia Commons, GFDL, commons.wikimedia.org After intense online bidding among 14 companies that lasted for over 10 hours, South African solar PV developer Phelan Energy Group Limited (PEG) emerged as a winner, having placed a bid of INR 2.62 ($ 0.0406)/kWh. This is more than 15% lower than the previous record of $ 0.0494/kWh set in April in an NTPC-tendererd auction in Andhra Pradesh by Solairedirect. PEG, the developer of the largest solar farm in Southern Africa, with a capacity of 175 MW, said in a release that according to energy experts and current market conditions, the price achieved by PEG is lower than the average rate of power generated by the coal-fuelled projects of India’s largest power generation utility, NTPC Ltd, of INR3.20 per unit. “The result of this bid has proved that solar power is no longer simply an alternative, but is the de facto cheapest form of power available in a coal power-dominated market such as India,” said Paschal Phelan, Chairman of PEG. “The coal and nuclear industries will fight to hold the old order with non-moving solar cells able to convert sunshine directly into electricity at half the price with minimal environmental impact.” The good news about the new record-breaking price comes on the heels of the gloomy statistics showing that despite installing record solar PV capacities in financial year 2016-17, India fell short of reaching its targeted capacity by some 5 GW. pv-magazine.com