Brussels, 01/09/2015 (Agence Europe) - The cost of producing electricity from renewable sources like wind and solar has fallen significantly since 2010 and the cost of nuclear energy has “plateau-ed”, states the International Energy Organisation (IEA) in a study conducted along with the Nuclear Energy Agency, an OECD body, published on Monday 31 August.
The cost of electricity generated from renewable sources, especially solar photovoltaic, has seen a significant drop as a result of sustained technological progress and the continuing government support, notes the study, which looked at 181 plants - from large nuclear and fossil-fuel facilities to wind farms to residential-sized solar PV installations - in 22 countries. The cost of renewable technologies is no longer prohibitive when selecting a means of generating electricity, the IEA observes. In autumn 2014, the IEA suggested that solar power could become the major source of electricity by 2050, thanks to photovoltaic technology, which could see its share of global electricity generation rise from 1% to 16%, and other solar technologies.
The study also finds that new nuclear power plants generate electricity more cheaply than other established sources such as coal- and gas-fired power plants over the full lifetime of facilities when financing costs are relatively low.
Putting the two together, the sharp fall in the cost of electricity generated from renewable sources and the levelling out of the costs of nuclear electricity have helped arrest cost inflation in electricity generation over the past five years, the IEA says. The factors which determine the costs of the various technologies used in the generation of electricity remain very specific to each market and each technology (market structure, policy environment and resource endowments), and this makes it difficult to argue that any single technology is the cheapest in all circumstances, the agency warns. (Emmanuel Hagry)