Plus: China’s coal use a concern; Lyft’s IPO; Renewables cheaper than most US coal; a giant battery in Florida
Hi Everyone,
The main headline story this week would have to be the drop in the cost of batteries – 35% since the first half of 2018. It’s part of the reason why most coal in the US can be replaced with cheaper renewables, and why there is said to be no business case for fossil fuel power generation in Australia.
Yet China’s continued use of coal is discouraging. See the piece from Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Weekly Climate Review. Plus, Reuters reported on the first ride-hailing IPO by Lyft, valued the company at $24.3B. Uber’s is said to be in April, with bankers saying it’s worth $120B.
Enjoy the rest and feel free to send me a note with any thoughts or comments.
Thanks,
Peter
Incredible further drop in battery costs; solar and wind get cheaper too
“Precipitous”, “stunning” and “plummeting” are used to describe the 35% decline in the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) of lithium-ion batteries in the short time from the first half of 2018 to today – to US$187/MWh. Technology innovation, economies of scale, stiff price competition and manufacturing experience are the main reasons for making it possible. It’s no wonder that the combo of solar- or wind-battery installations now out compete on unsubsidized basis coal and gas fired power generation in an increasing number of markets. These two stories capture the development well.
- More stunning falls in solar and battery storage costs put fossil fuels on notice | RenewEconomy
- Report: Levelized Cost of Energy for Lithium-Ion Batteries Is Plummeting | Greentech Media
On the same theme, it was shown that Australia can get all the way to 50% renewables with no energy storage:
- Study: Fossil Fuel Generation Has No Business Case in Australia | Greentech Media
A selection of stories that caught my attention…
- Statkraft, a Norwegian company aims to build 2GW (that’s a lot) of renewables in a virtual power plant in the UK, with another 12GW in Germany (Greentech Media)
- The Pacific Northwest is about to get electric seaplanes for 12 routes to fly 500,000 passengers a year. Harbour Air plans to convert all it seaplanes to create the first all-electric airline.
- ‘Black mass’ battery recycling process makes 90% CO2 reduction possible, Fortum claims | Energy Storage News
- Tesla’s Model 3 Shatters Record in Electric Car Crazy Norway | Bloomberg At nearly 3600 Model 3s sold so far in March, that’s 65% more than Nissan’s previous record sales of the Leaf.
- Spanish oil and gas producer Repsol extends its move into the utility space with this investment in energy storage. Noteworthy too is Ampere’s technology to harness distributed storage into a virtual power plant. Last year it spent more than US$800 million to buy 2.4 GW of renewable capacity. In both cases, Repsol is following Shell’s lead.
- A group of corporate giants vowed to quadruple renewable deals through the launch of a trade association: the Renewable Energy Buyers Alliance. Deals in the past 5 years involving the purchase of renewable power totaled 15GW. Pledges by companies thus far would require an additional 42GW by 2025, but the group wants to do more – 60GW by the same date.
- Daimler, Geely turning Smart car into Chinese-made all-electric global brand – Electrek The move by Daimler looks to leverage the cheaper production of an electric Smart car in China by Geely for global export. Yet with 100 cities in China with over a million people, there is no shortage of urban opportunity for a small EV.
- Bogotá, Colombia’s Ciclovía bans cars every Sunday, and people love it | National Geographic
- BP Pledges $100 Million to Cut Emissions From Oil Operations | Bloomberg This is impressive – $100 million to spend on upstream emission reduction projects. That’s in addition to the $500 million annually being spent on green power.
- GM invests $300M in Michigan plant to build new EV | Smart Cities Dive
- Saudi Arabia announces 2.6GW solar project near Mecca | RenewEconomy Forgive my skepticism…at the very low price of $21.3/MWh, I wonder whether this project will ever become a reality. I seem to recall a similarly low bid a while back that was predicted to require the government to save it.
- Idaho Power targets 100% carbon free energy by 2045, joining the ranks of Xcel | Utility Dive
- This is an interesting creature…Volta Expands Fund to $180 Million With Investment From Equinor and Hanon Systems | Greentech Media
Replacing most coal plants with renewables cheaper than keeping them open, report finds | Think Progress
A couple quick points made in this article:
- 74% of existing coal could be replaced with cheaper renewables – today. That percentage climbs to 86% by 2025.
- About one third (96 GW) of the US coal fleet could be replaced with renewables at half the current cost of coal in 2018 and is therefore considered ‘substantially at risk’
- The assumptions were conservative: they only considered solar and wind potential within 35 miles (50km) of coal power plants
Shell goes green as it rebrands UK household power supplier | Reuters
It’s interesting to watch how Shell is marketing to expand from its over 700,000 power customers, putting pressure on the other ‘big six’ utilities in the UK. Besides 100% renewables, it offers 3 percent off at its gas stations and discounted EV charging.
Sonnen aims to unify all aspects of the smart home | Utility Dive
What did I say last week? There’s better margins on software and services than hardware, especially the thin profit margins on solar and wind. Here’s another case in point. No wonder Shell bought sonnen.
Florida Power & Light stakes its claim for the world’s largest solar battery system – Electrek
This carries on with a familiar theme. Noteworthy: it serves to retire 2 gas-fired power plants and save customers $100 million in the process. Utilities are using ever larger batteries – this one can power 329,000 homes for 2 hours – the equivalent to 100 million iPhone batteries.
Self-driving Cars Learn to Navigate Unknown, Extreme Conditions
Excerpt: To develop a more flexible, responsive control system, the researchers built a neural network — a type of artificially intelligent computing system — that integrates data from past driving experiences, and a winter test facility with foundational knowledge provided by 200,000 physics-based trajectories. …more from News18.com
An informative weekly curation of climate news…with this tidbit on China
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation puts out on Fridays a very good summary of important stories in the Weekly Climate Review. It reports stories in a way that really helps understand the context. There is no question about its agenda and its content is very US centric. That said, it includes stories on India and China. I provide an excerpt of the latter below. This might not be for everyone, but just thought I’d offer it up for those interested. Subscribe here. Don’t ask me how I found it, because I can’t find it on the foundation website.
Excerpt: “The largest power producers in China have asked the government to allow for the development of between 300 and 500 new coal power plants by 2030 in a move that could single-handedly jeopardize global climate change targets,” Lauri Myllyvirta, a senior energy analyst and seasoned China expert at Greenpeace, wrote this week. “In its review of the government’s five-year-plan, China Electricity Council—the influential industry body representing China’s power industry—recommended adopting a ‘cap’ for coal power capacity by 2030, but the 1,300-gigawatt (GW) limit proposed is 290 GW higher than [country’s] current [generation] capacity. … The cap would enable China to build two large coal power stations a month for the next 12 years, and grow the country’s capacity by an amount nearly twice the size of Europe’s [current] total coal capacity.”
Lightning Strike electric motorcycle unveiled: the most affordable high power electric sportbike | Electrek
For those who might be interested in this. Not sure if it’s available in Canada. Snappy looking bike.
Credit: Electrek