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End	of the load? Challenging power technology assumptions

End of the load? Challenging power technology assumptions

Full Title: End of the load? Challenging power technology assumptions
Author(s): Paul Dowling, Matt Gray
Publisher(s): Carbon Tracker Initiative
Publication Date: September 1, 2016
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):

Carbon Tracker’s work on the energy transition has already demonstrated the value in challenging traditional energy model assumptions. There is a confusing picture in the energy debate about which technologies are the cheapest option, yet the world is clearly at a point where more renewables are getting built and there is uncertainty about new coal and gas plants.

Levelised Costs of Electricity (LCOEs) provide one way of comparing the costs of technologies, although it is widely recognized that there are large ranges of values for each technology, and that other important factors such as daily peak pricing and the system value of wind and solar also come in to play. It is clear that the answer to the question which is the cheapest is: “It depends”.

This analysis is an attempt to demonstrate why it is useful for those using LCOEs to make investment or policy decisions to challenge the underlying assumptions, and understand how the landscape is changing. This research highlights how a series of modest incremental changes to average LCOE assumptions can have a profound cumulative impact on the affordability of power generation technologies.

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