Renewable Power Generation Costs in 2020
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Content for Renewable Power Generation Costs in 2020 Article
- What is in the Report ?
- About Renewable Power Generation Costs in 2020 Report
- Various Initiatives by India
- What are the challenges for India ?
Why in News ?
Recently, Renewable Power Generation Costs in 2020 report was released by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).
International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), a powerhouse of renewable energy data and policy discourse.
Key Facts
- The decade 2010 to 2020 saw renewable power generation becoming the default economic choice for new capacity.
- Between 2000 and 2020, renewable power generation capacity worldwide increased 3.7‑fold from 754 gigawatts (GW) to 2 799 GW.
Photo by Raimond Klavins on Unsplash - Nearly 810 gigawatts (GW) capacity of the world’s existing coal fired plants 38 % of the total global energy capacity are now have higher operating costs than new utility scale photovoltaics and onshore wind energy.
- As a result of fall in cost due to advanced technology the power generation will reach to new heights.
- For utility-scale solar photovoltaics (PV) fall by 85 % of the said period.
- Also cost of electricity from solar and wind power has fallen, to very low levels.
- Nearly 162 GW or 62 per cent of total renewable power capacity added last year had lower costs than the cheapest new fossil fuel option.
- The cost of onshore wind generation fell by 13 per cent.
- OECD countries these projects will reduce costs in the electricity sector by at least $6 billion.
- Reduce annual CO2 emissions
- Coal-fired plants would cut annual system costs by USD 32 billion per year.
- Reduce annual CO2 emissions by around 3 Gigatonnes of CO2.
- Expected cost of Fossil Fuel powered power generation of G20 Nations will be between $0.055 – $0.148 per kilowatt-hour.
About Renewable Power Generation Costs in 2020 Report
- IRENA’s cost analysis programme has been collecting and reporting the cost and performance data of renewable power generation technologies since 2012.
- The two core sources of data for the cost and performance metrics contained in this report are the
- IRENA Renewable Cost Database
- IRENA Auctions and Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) databases.
- This year for the first time the report also includes a snapshot of IRENA’s cost data for behind the meter battery storage and solar thermal technologies for industrial heat.
- Also the report analyses cost components in detail.
- For this report
- 20 000 renewable power generation projects analysed.
- data from 13 000 auctions and power purchase agreements for renewables checked.
Various Initiatives by India
- India was expected to achieve a total installed capacity of about 122 GW by the end of 2022 including biomass and small hydro.
- International Solar Alliance is also aimed Indian ambition for Renewable Energy.
- Green Tariff Policy Of India aims at supply electricity generated from clean energy projects at a cheaper rate as compared to power from conventional fuel sources such as coal.
- Decarbonisation And Promotion of RE is the extension of the waiver of Inter-State Transmission system (ISTS) charges on transmission of electricity generated from solar and wind sources for projects to be commissioned up to 30th June 2025.
What are the challenges for India ?
- Don’t have the execution capacity required to scale up annual capacity addition to 25-30 GW.
- Lot of factors involved like land, transmission, grid robustness etc. are involved.
- Comparatively the demand is less.
- Recent pandemic impact the economy and its implementation.
- Interest rate for loans is high as compared with developed countries.
- Low Tariff set for distribution companies.
- India depends on import of equipment like solar modules, batteries used for installation of plants.
- Policy push in not enough for achievements committed.
Way Forward : At the starting phase government’s support is needed. As moving forward instead of support specific policies to ensure that the sector grows.
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