Energy Solutions to Air Pollution and Global Warming - Air Pollution and Global Warming: History, Science, and Solutions - page 335

Table 13.7. Approximate fully annualized generation and short-distance
transmission costs for wind, water, and sunlight (WWS) power (2007 U.S.
cents/kWh-delivered)

Energy technology 2005-2010 2020 +

Wind onshore 4-7 ≤ 4

Wind offshore 10-17 8-13

≥

Wave 11 4-11

Geothermal 4-7 4-7

Hydroelectric 4 4

CSP 10-15 7-8

Solar PV 9-13 5-7

Tidal > 11 5-7

New conventional (plus
externalities)

7( + 5) = 12 8-9 ( + 5.5) = 13.5-14.5

Also shown are generation costs and externality costs (from Table 13.8) of new conventional fuels.
CSP, concentrated solar power; PV, photovoltaic.
Source: Delucchi and Jacobson (2011), except that solar PV and CSP have been updated based on
recent price changes and the upper-end of conventional fuel cost has been updated based on new
projections.

of demand were supplied by wind (Kempton and Tomic,
2005b)

including the capital, land, operating, maintenance,
storage, and transmission cost per unit energy delivered,
is low. In this section, cost estimates of a reliable WWS
generation and transmission system are discussed.
Table 13.7 presents estimates of 2005 to 2010 and
future (2020 and beyond) costs of power generation
with conventional (but not extra long-distance) trans-
mission for WWS systems. It also shows the average
U.S. delivered electricity cost for conventional (mostly
fossil) generation, excluding electricity distribution.
Forfossil fuel generation, the externality cost ,which
includes the hidden cost of air pollution and climate
change to society as a whole due to a polluting energy
technology, is also shown. The derivation of the exter-
nality cost is provided in Table 13.8.
Table 13.7 indicates that onshore wind, hydroelectric,
and geothermal plants cost the same or less than typi-
cal new conventional technologies (e.g., new coal-fired
or natural gas power plants) from 2005 to 2010, with-
out accounting for the additional externality costs of the
conventional technologies. The WWS technologies cost
significantly less than conventional technologies when
the externality costs are accounted for. WWS technolo-
gies today cost more than old coal-fired power plants
in the United States because many such plants were
grandfathered into the Clean Air Act Amendments of
1970. Thus, they are not required to meet the same emis-
sion requirements as new plants. As such, the electricity

13.8.7. Using Weather Forecasts to Plan
for and Reduce Backup Requirements
Forecasting the weather (winds, sunlight, waves, tides,
and precipitation) gives grid operators more time to
plan ahead for a backup energy supply when a vari-
able energy source might produce less than anticipated.
Good forecast accuracy can also allow spinning reserves
to be shut down more frequently, reducing the over-
all carbon emissions of the system if natural gas is
used as backup (Hart and Jacobson, 2011). Forecast-
ing is done with either a numerical weather prediction
model, the best of which can produce minute-by-minute
predictions 1 to 4 days in advance with good accu-
racy, or statistical analyses of local measurements. The
use of forecasting reduces uncertainty and makes plan-
ning more dependable, thus reducing the impacts of
variability.

13.9. Cost of Wind, Water, and Sunlight
Electricity Generation and Long-Distance
Transmission
An important criterion in the evaluation of WWS sys-
tems is to ensure that the full cost of delivered power,