Half the price of coal!
Chile exceeded 1000 Megawatts of solar this year. CREDIT: ACERA. |
Chile has just contracted for the cheapest unsubsidized power plant in the world, Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) reports.
In last week’s energy auction, Chile accepted a bid from Spanish developer Solarpack Corp. Tecnologica
for 120 megawatts of solar at the stunning price of $29.10 per
megawatt-hour (2.91 cents per kilowatt-hour or kwh). This beats the 2.99
cents/kwh bid Dubai received recently for 800 megawatts. For context, the average residential price for electricity in the United States is 12 cents per kilowatt-hour.
“Solar power delivers cheapest unsubsidised electricity ever, anywhere, by any technology,” BNEF Chair Michael Liebreich said on Twitter after this contract was announced.
Carlos Finat, head of the Chilean Renewable Energies Association (ACERA) told Bloomberg
that the auction is “a strong warning sign that the energy business
continues on the transition path to renewable power and that companies
should adapt quickly to this transition process.” Indeed, in the same
auction, the price of coal power was nearly twice as high!
Grid-connected
solar power on Chile has quadrupled since 2013. Total installed
capacity exceeded 1,000 megawatts this year — the most by far in South
America. Another 2,000 megawatts is under construction, and there are
over 11,000 megawatts that are “RCA Approved” (i.e. have environmental
permits).
Chile is aided by the fact that its Atacama desert is “the region with the highest solar radiation on the planet,” according to
the Inter-American Development Bank. So much solar is being built in
the high-altitude desert that Northern Chile can’t use it all, and the
government is rushing to build new transmission lines.
Chile
is part of a global trend where solar energy has doubled seven times
since 2000. In the U.S. alone, it has grown 100-fold in the past decade
thanks to a sharp drop in prices that has brought the cost of solar
(with subsidies) to under four cents a kilowatt hour in many places, as I
detailed last month.
The future for solar could not be sunnier.
Links
No comments :
Post a Comment