Another fairy tale about the levelised cost of renewables
Wednesday 30th August 2023 | Andrew Montford
I recently described UK government’s latest estimates of levelised cost of renewables as “a fairy-tale”. Well, if Whitehall’s effort was Rumpelstiltskin, then the equivalent document from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), which appeared yesterday, is Jack and the Beanstalk.
Take the operational costs of windfarms, for example. IRENA claims that it’s difficult get hold of hard data on the subject. This is, not to put too fine a point on it, absolute nonsense. Guys, allow me to introduce you to Companies House, where you will find the audited financial accounts for every UK offshore windfarm and at least half of the onshore ones. Hard data, freely available to download!
For offshore wind, having conveniently overlooked the hard data for another year, IRENA appear to be relying on a 2018 modelling study from the US and a remark in an investor presentation from Orsted (science!). They conclude that opex is in the range £50-100,000 per megawatt of capacity per year.
https://www.netzerowatch.com/irena-levelised-cost-of-renewables/
