Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
/kWh
therm
for Solar Thermal Systems for
Domestic Water Heating with an Interest Rate of 6 per cent and with Annual
Operating Costs of
Table 6.6
Levelled Heat Costs in
€
€
40
Substituted amount of energy
Annual 2300 kWh
therm
Annual 1150 kWh
therm
Lifetime
20 years
15 years
20 years
15 years
Investment cost
€
5000
0.21
0.24
0.41
0.48
€
3500
0.15
0.17
0.30
0.35
€
2500
0.11
0.13
0.22
0.26
€
1800
0.09
0.10
0.17
0.20
€
1000
0.06
0.06
0.11
0.12
Future development of costs for renewable
energy systems
Costs for renewable energy systems will decrease further as they have done in
the past. Increased production volume, more automation in production and
the use of ever more sophisticated technologies will reduce the costs
significantly. Production volumes of many renewable energy technologies are
still relatively low and many involve multiple production steps, requiring
expensive labour.
An important parameter for future cost estimations is the so-called
progress ratio PR
. This parameter expresses the rate at which costs decline
each time the cumulative capacity implementation doubles. For instance, a PR
of 90 per cent corresponds to a learning rate of 10 per cent, i.e. there is a 10
per cent cost reduction for each doubling of the cumulative capacity.
The PR of
wind power plants
for the 1980s and 1990s was between 0.8
and 0.96 depending on the region (Harmsen and van Sambeek, 2003; IEA,
2000). The global installed capacity has doubled approximately every 2.5 years
over the past decade. With an average PR of 0.92 the cost reduction is nearly
30 per cent per decade. Further cost reductions can be expected by increasing
system sizes. However, in some regions, such as locations in Germany, wind
turbines have been already installed at most of the best sites. Using further
sites with lower wind speeds can offset part of the cost reduction of increased
wind turbine production.
Photovoltaic systems
have also achieved noteworthy cost reductions over
the past few decades. Figure 6.3 shows the reduction in photovoltaic module
prices for three countries. The global progress ratio for photovoltaic systems
has been around 0.8 over the past few decades. The installed global
photovoltaic capacity has been doubling approximately every three years. The
resulting cost reduction is about 50 per cent per decade. Further significant
cost reductions are possible due to new solar cell materials and fast-increasing
production volumes. Most other renewables also show progress ratios of
between 0.8 and 0.9.
