Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 1 Levelised cost of electricity (2012) renewable technologies
Wind
Onshore: 0.06 - 0.14
Best sites US: 0.04
0.05
-
Offshore: 0.15
0.19
Small scale: 0.16 - 0.40
PV
Utility scale: 0.13
-
0.31
-
Good sites: 0.11
Residential/off-grid: 0.20
0.45
-
CSP
Parabolic trough: 0.20 - 0.36
Solar tower: 0.17 - 0.29
good sites: 0.14
0.18
-
Biomass
Typical: 0.06 - 0.15
Good sites: 0.02
0.06
-
Geothermal
Typical: 0.09 - 0.14
Good sites: 0.05
Hydro
Small: 0.02 - 0.13 (0.27)
Large: 0.02
0.19
Upgrading/refurbishing: 0.01
-
0.05
-
0.13
Diesel- red: 0.35 - 0.50
LCOE quoted in USD/kWh
Values in parenthesis are for some extreme obs
Fossil (OECD): 0.06
-
i.e. three times as much, for a solar tower system with 6
15 h of storage in a typical
OECD country. Generally solar tower systems are more expensive than PTC, but
they are also more ef
-
cient since they achieve higher temperatures: storage also
adds considerably to costs, and in developing countries costs tend to be lower
because of lower labour and other local costs (see Table 2 ). For the LCOE, with all
the caveats noted previously, for an average PTC system they stand in the range of
0.20
0.36 kWh. The LCOE for solar towers is somewhat lower, in the range of
-
0.17
ciency gains derived from the higher temperatures achieved,
and on good sites it may be as low as 0.14 kWh (see Table 1 ). Taken at face value
these
0.29, due to ef
-
gures imply that the technology has a long way to go before it reaches
competitiveness or grid parity. But they must be carefully weighted, given the other
factors discussed before, so that perhaps a system cost analysis may be more
adequate in this case.
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