Renewable Energy Will Phase out Coal

During the EcoGen conference in Brisbane earlier a couple of months ago, Kobad Bhavnagri from Bloomberg New Energy Finance said that renewable energy is already cheaper than coal in many regions, and that both wind and solar energy are staring to dominate energy production in countries where the conditions are favorable for these two renewable energy options.

He also said that Australia will rely more heavily on solar energy technology than wind farms because of various factors, including the quality of current wind farm projects, and the naturally favourable conditions which are isolated in certain parts of the country. Despite that Australia still has the ability to increase its wind energy capacity by 20% in a few years from now.

Mr Bhavnagri stressed that solar power has greater growth potential though, with it being likely the country can increase its solar energy capacity to 5 GW by the year 2020. Plus an additional 2 GW could come from solar thermal technology if the funds from the price on carbon are be used to increase the bankability of large scale solar projects, and consistent policies are legislated to help boost investor confidence in renewable energy.

Kobad Bhavnagri’s observations and predictions were backed up by Patrick Hearps, who is an analyst from Melbourne Energy Institute and a co-author of the Beyond Zero Emissions 100 per cent renewable energy vision for Australia. Hearps contradicted the first prediction of the Australian Energy Market Operator of $220-$225 per MWh by 2025 for solar thermal energy, and instead said that prices per MW would range from $120-$135 by the same year.

The successful EcoGen conference was a great success, laying out the pros and cons of various renewable energy options and presenting potential emerging technology that hopefully will soon power our cities and mitigate carbon for good.

The rising solar PV industry alongside with all other clean energy sources has already proven that its costs can soon be on par with coal and even be cheaper, which looks promising for the gradual phasing out of dirty and finite energy sources.

With the federal and state governments providing up to 50% financing for accepted projects the renewable energy sector in Australia is expected to go from strength to strength in the next few years, which combined with the falling prices of solar panels worldwide and continued research and development of the technology will aid Australia to achieve its renewable energy goals by 2020.