A new study has claimed that a global electricity network powered exclusively by renewables is possible by 2050, and will be cheaper than today’s system.
(Credit: Jürgen via flickr)
The report was carried out by Finland’s Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT) and the Energy Watch Group (EWG), an international non-profit that includes scientists and politicians. Presenting their results on the sidelines of the COP23 climate conference in Bonn, the researchers said that existing renewables potential, coupled with storage, could meet global demand by the middle of the century.
By that point, the planet’s increased population is predicted to consume around 48,800TWh of electricity per annum, roughly double what is used currently. However, the authors of the study estimate the total levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) from 100 per cent renewables in 2050 will be €52/MWh (including curtailment, storage and some grid costs), compared to €70/MWh in 2015.
“A full decarbonisation of the electricity system by 2050 is possible for lower system cost than today based on available technology,” said lead author Christian Breyer, LUT Professor of Solar Economy and chairman of the EWG Scientific Board.
“Energy transition is no longer a question of technical feasibility or economic viability, but of political will.”
Energy mix in 2015 vs estimated 2050 mix (Credit: LUT/EWG)
According to the researchers, solar PV and battery storage will be at the heart of the transition. Rapidly falling costs for both technologies will encourage widespread adoption, with solar making up 69 per cent of the energy mix by 2050. Total storage output is expected to increase from 33TWh to 15,128TWh. The vast majority of this (95 per cent) will be provided by batteries, with seasonal storage coming via renewable gas. Pumped hydro storage – which currently accounts for 93 per cent of storage output – is predicted to provide just one per cent come 2050. The Engineer will be taking a closer look at pumped hydro storage in the upcoming issue.
READ MORE RENEWABLES NEWS HERE
The report also states that if the path to 100 per cent renewables is followed, global greenhouse emissions from electricity production will decline from about 11GtCO2 in 2015 to zero emissions by 2050. Furthermore, it is claimed that total jobs in the electricity sector will increase from 19 million to 36 million.
”There is no reason to invest one more dollar in fossil or nuclear power production,” said EWG president Hans-Josef Fell .
“Renewable energy provides cost-effective power supply. All plans for a further expansion of coal, nuclear, gas and oil have to be ceased. More investments need to be channeled in renewable energies and the necessary infrastructure for storage and grids. Everything else will lead to unnecessary costs and increasing global warming.”
Sounds like good economic sense to me, 21st Century Renewable Zero Carbon energy for all.
Sounds a bit like the promise of “free” nuclear power we were all going to benefit from in the 1950s as it was not worth the cost of metering. It would be interesting to get a forensic impartial, independent and objective analysis of the input assumptions, modelling and data on all of this. A back check in 50 years time might be too much to hope for.
The final paragraph sounds a bit like eco-fascism and the use of a command economy to bring this scenario into play.
Good to see these authors forecasting (?) that in 2050 there will very little nuclear power. Shame however that they are expecting that biomass power will quadruple (GWh). That is not carbon neutral.
And what has happened to concentrating solar power? It appears now just a part of the miniscule ‘other’.
As for renewable gas providing inter-seasonal storage? There must be a conflict here with the alternative uses, eg as a fuel for gas home heating systems and possibly H2 vehicles.
The people at COP 23 will accept almost any forecasts that suit their cause without criticism.
This is the fantasy economics of the fanatical greenie not an engineering assessment of world power systems. It is beyond all sensible boundaries to assert that solar power will provide 69% of power by 2050, wven if costs do fall (not as likely as they think). It will no doubt attract a large EU funding!
If they presented their paper to people who know about power I suspect that they would return to Finland very quickly.
Solar power currently costs the taxpayer 30 pence per KWH (£300/MWh) and that’s without any storage cost (to keep summer energy for the dark winter days).
So the report is saying that in 30 years time it will cost approximately one tenth the current cost (€52/MWh including storage).
That’s really good news, but I’d like to know the details of how the costs will come down. (Not just a statement of future cost but start with a detailed current cost breakdown and say what will cause each of those component costs to diminish.)
The elephant in the room is that this 48,800 TWh (5.57 TW avg) is only for the Power Sector, about one-fifth of total world energy consumption.
According to https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/ieo/, this was 168,500 TWh in 2015 (19.2 TW avg) and expected to be 215,700 TWh by 2040 (24.6 TW avg).
Assuming 235,000 TWh by 2050 (26.8 TW avg), where do the authors foresee the remaining 80% coming from?
To supply an expected population of 11 billion in 2100 will require 55 TW (avg) – which would still leave many billions poor. For equal wealth amongst this population requires 114 TW (avg), or 1,000,000 TWh.
Even with massive grid scale storage, carpeting vast tracks of land with terrestrial PV and wind turbines is going to compete with agricultural land and forests. Like many others, I personally enjoy eating and breathing.
One solution was provided by Peter Glaser in 1968, requiring no scientific or technical breakthroughs – just a large amount of investment; which we are going to spend otherwise on resource wars.
Report by Christian Breyer, professor of solar economy, sponsored by the Energy Watch Group.
No bias there then!
According to the well respected and very conservative Lazard Levelized Cost of Energy which bases its Energy Cost Comparisons on last years data, the cost of unsubsidised wind energy ranges from $30 – $60 whereas the cheapest Solar PV Thin Film Utility Scale is $43 – 48 per MWh. This is cheaper than coal ($60 – $143) and Nuclear ($112 – $183) and can compete with Gas Combined Cycle ($42 – $78). This is why coal power is dying out and Nuclear has to be heavily subsidised.
https://www.lazard.com/media/450337/lazard-levelized-cost-of-energy-version-110.pdf
An interesting and useful report tim, thanks for the link. Interpretation of their assessments needs a lot of time and effort. For example, their comparisons are all for new plant, while life extension of coal plant is very economic but not covered. LCOE is a long established comparison but can be subject to a lot of assumptions, in this case that CCS will be developed in a short time and solar and storage prices will fall considerably.
So what’s your technical and economic forecast for those of you that use insults instead of arguments?
Here is another roadmap to 100%RE by 2050, which of course we should reach much earlier if we are to prevent the breaching of all 9 planetary boundaries that allow the current modern human civilization to continue to exist and make progress (where progress is not equal to GDP growth and is not fossil fuel based)
https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/CountriesWWS.pdf
To add to the cost data provided by Tom P: current global LCOE for RE is within fossil fuel range except for solar thermal. And according to some of you, these costs will not continue to go down with scaling up, because, all of a sudden, economies of scale apply to fossil fuels, but not to RE.
http://resourceirena.irena.org/gateway/dashboard/?topic=3&subTopic=1057
The question is not how accurate this study’s or the one I cited and many others’ forecast is, but how can we beat the 2050 target. That’s a competition worth spending our brains and money on.
One more thing: fossil fuels are history, we’ll keep what’s left in the ground.
We obviously see the world very differently, I see world coal usage still rising through the growth of China and India, you see it falling. All part of being in a democracy but I do I agree that insults are not the way forward in these debates. As an AGW “denier” I am probably more used to the insults than you are!
Jack B, it’s a pleasure to have a civilized, professional exchange here and everywhere else.
On coal, I see the world as it happens. Of course I am very happy with the trend, even it it’s too slow, and have a difficult time understanding why any engineer would support one of the most primitive energy technologies, the dirtiest, most inefficient and one of the most destructive to human health, ecosystems and climate.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-13/coal-s-era-starts-to-wane-as-world-shifts-to-cleaner-energy
https://blueridgecountry.com/archive/favorites/mountaintop-removal-mining/
The topic of science and democracy is an interesting one, if The Engineer wants to pick it up, I would be happy to comment.
Back to renewable energy, today’s news about the Tesla electric truck launch gives me more confidence that we’ll bring the 2050 target closer to today. Isn’t that super exciting? The truck is a superb engineering achievement and one of the clean technologies that will bend the current anthropogenic climate change back into life supporting ranges, including CO2 ppm.
Coal can never be risk free any more than can any fossil fuel. However, despite this risk, the economic development of the world has been based on low cost coal and oil for several generations and it is these fuels that are raising the living standards in the developing world. If China and India had to rely on wind and solar power their progress would be zero.
Despite being an “AGW denier”, I am still looking for any actual evidence of any climatic changes, other than computer and opinion generated, do you know of any?
Jack, come on. Please.
https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
Global temperature rise
Warming oceans
Shrinking ice sheets
Glacial retreat
Decreased snow cover
Sea level rise
Declining Arctic sea ice
Extreme events
Ocean acidification
There is nothing computer or opinion-generated about these occurrences. They have been empirically observed by scientific bodies around the world over decades. We can allow some debate as to the degree to which human activity is to blame, but we can’t allow commenters to deny that these events are occurring.