The falling Cost Of Renewable Energy Is Leading The Race To Net Zero

The falling Cost Of Renewable Energy Is Leading The Race To Net Zero

On World Environment Day , the United Nations launched the Race to Zero, a global campaign to mobilize leadership and support from businesses, cities, regions, and investors for a zero-carbon recovery and to accelerate action to reduce harmful climate-change emissions.

· The cost of renewable energy continues to fall. In most cases, it’s now cheaper to use renewables than fossil fuels.

· $23 billion could be wiped off global bills if we switched from costly coal to renewables.

· Power industry experts say the switch to renewables is now unstoppable.

Renewable energy is not only cheaper than fossil fuels, but it’s undercutting them without subsidy – and is now the default choice for new electricity generation.

Although the cost of all forms of renewable energy has become more competitive, the price of onshore wind and solar photovoltaic–generated power has both fallen below 5 US cents per kilowatt hour for the first time, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) says.

Fossil fuel-fired power generation is estimated to cost between 5 and 18 cents per kilowatt hour, according to IRENA.

In April 2019, the United States generated more electricity from renewables than from coal for the first time. In the same month, the UK went for 18 days without using any coal to generate electricity.

IRENA says $23 billion could be wiped off the world’s energy bills if the costliest 500 gigawatts of the coal-generating plant were replaced by solar and wind power. While switching generation from fossil fuels to renewables would reduce global CO2 emissions by 5%, it says.

There are three factors that mean renewables will continue to grow: public environmental concerns; the falling cost of renewable energy; and the fact the technologies are now available to make the renewable energy revolution happen.

The global energy sector has an impressive record of scaling-up renewables like wind and solar – but it is not so good at predicting future price changes of the clean energy these renewables produce, according to a new report. Solar energy was first used to supply electricity to satellites in space. Since coming down to Earth, design and manufacturing innovation, supply chain advances, and mass adoption of sustainable energy have seen the costs of this and many other renewable technologies tumble.

The energy transition has increased both demand and application of sustainable energy sources like solar, offshore, and onshore wind. Scaled up, these technologies can create a cycle where greater deployment leads to even lower prices, prompting increased demand. Innovations that reduce the price of manufacturing solar panels and wind turbines also reduce the cost of the electricity they produce when these technologies operate at scale – but this hasn’t happened to the same extent with fossil fuels like coal.