Renewables Overtake Coal As World's Largest Source of Power Capacity (ft.com)

The world's largest source of power capacity is now renewables, as roughly half a million solar panels were installed every single day last year. In addition, two wind turbines were erected every hour in countries such as China, according to the International Energy Agency. Financial Times reports (Editor's note: may be paywalled; alternate source): Although coal and other fossil fuels remain the largest source of electricity generation, many conventional power utilities and energy groups have been confounded by the speed at which renewables have grown and the rapid drop in costs for the technologies. Average global generation costs for new onshore wind farms fell by an estimated 30 percent between 2010 and 2015 while those for big solar panel plants fell by an even steeper two-thirds, an IEA report published on Tuesday showed. The Paris-based agency thinks costs are likely to fall even further over the next five years, by 15 percent on average for wind and by a quarter for solar power. It said an unprecedented 153 gigawatts of green electricity was installed last year, mostly wind and solar projects, which has more than the total power capacity in Canada. It was also more than the amount of conventional fossil fuel or nuclear power added in 2015, leading renewables to surpass coal's cumulative share of global power capacity -- though not electricity generation. A power plant's capacity is the maximum amount of electricity it can potentially produce. The amount of energy a plant actually generates varies according to how long it produces power over a period of time. Coal power plants supplied close to 39 percent of the world's power in 2015, while renewables, including old hydropower dams, accounted for 23 percent, IEA data show. But the agency expects renewables' share of power generation to rise to 28 percent by 2021, when it predicts they will supply the equivalent of all the electricity generated today in the U.S. and E.U. combined.

Comments

Renewables will never work

[AK Marc]

So, is it time to go back to all the nay sayers who have over the past 10 years asserted this point was impossible, and say "I told you so"? Or will they just continue to assert that the numbers are all lies, and only coal can make electricity?

Re:Renewables will never work

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe when renewables actually PRODUCE as much power as coal, that might be a better day to beat your chest.

Re:Renewables will never work

[Mashiki]

What you mean like here in Ontario? Where the windmills don't turn because the government pays them not to produce electricity? Where it accounts for under 2% of the total generation but responsible for 80% of the price increase in the last decade? From at peak of 0.07kWh to 0.18kWh. Where you can have 45+ days in a row without direct sunlight for solar. Yeah, they're doing a world of good for us. 70k people have had their electricity cut in the last 2 years, 700k customers are 4 months or more in arrears right now. The largest hydro company(Ontario Hydro) has 1.3m customers for example. FYI: Electricity is called hydro here, because our primary generation source used to be hydro-electric.

Re:Renewables will never work

[arglebargle_xiv]

The headline is wrong, as usual. In fact even reading the summary shows you it can't be right:

Coal power plants supplied close to 39 percent of the world's power in 2015, while renewables, including old hydropower dams, accounted for 23 percent, IEA data show

So renewables are around half of what coal is. If you look at the original article, even just the sub-header, you'll see that:

153 GigaWatts of renewables make up over half the new capacity added globally.

That's "new capacity added so far this year", not "total capacity" as the headline here claims.

Re:Renewables will never work

[ShanghaiBill]

Windmills are there to cover peaks.

No, this is nonsense. Windmills are there to produce power when the wind is blowing. Wind is not "peaking power", that can fill in the gaps from other sources, because it is not dependable. The opposite is true: variable winds create peaks and troughs that need to be filled by on-demand sources such as gas turbines or ... hydro.

Re:Renewables will never work

[GNious]

So'eh, progress is not something to be proud of ... gotcha

Re:Let me know when ...

[Ungrounded Lightning]

The power can be stored,

The issue is not that the power can be stored.

The issue is that power capacity comparisons overstate the total amount of energy you get out of the renewable generation equipment over the long haul because coal generation can run near capacity all the time and renewables (excluding water power) only a small part of the time.

I'm quite supportive of renewable energy. (I'm a major participant on one of the renewable energy tech discussion boards, too.) But while it's very GOOD that renewable power has passed coal in power capacity, even with near-ideal load-levelling storage, it will take about another factor of three before it surpasses coal in providing usable energy to the loads.

Re:Subsidies

[hyades1]

Yes, they've been doing exactly that with oil for generations. The petrochemical corporations have even persuaded governments to fight wars on their behalf.

The effect on the competition has been devastating.

Re:Subsidies

[Maxo-Texas]

Exactly.. We spent $2 trillion dollars and over 4,000 lives to protect Oil Company interests in the middle east.

That's a huge subsidy that doesn't get counted as a subsidy.

Re:Subsidies

[ShanghaiBill]

That's a huge subsidy that doesn't get counted as a subsidy.

Nor should it, because it was NOT a subsidy. The price of oil skyrocketed when war broke out in 2003, and remained high for more than a decade. Subsidies encourage over production. The Iraq war did the exact opposite. It depressed output, and pushed up prices.

You obviously think the Iraq war was dumb, but it is also obvious that it was even dumber than you think. We paid more in excess oil prices than we spent on the war itself.

Re:Subsidies

[gweihir]

Yep. Except for the Oil-Execs, that benefited hugely from all this (and the destruction of the planet they are driving forward).