Rethink Energy Research

An economic report from Rethink Energy, entitled “Sticking with natural gas will lead to power generation losses of $1 trillion by 2050,” forecasts where these asset losses will be recorded around the world, if investors continue to back natural gas assets for electricity generation.

This forecast shows definitively that rather than focusing purely on the dying coal industry, investors should be questioning the outlook for natural gas – investors, utilities and energy companies should carefully study investment decisions made recently and over the next few years, unless they are happy to absorb investment losses against clean energy portfolios in excess of $1.2 trillion.

The report draws a continuous graph on pricing from today’s gas investments, and shows when each will be “under water” and unable to compete with wind and solar, plus batteries – and when existing assets will go cash negative.

By tracking the LCOE (levelized cost of energy) and LCOS (Levelized Cost of Storage) for each of the technologies, and plotting the point where they cross, we can see that gas has just a few more years of profitability left, before crashing into annual losses – unable to compete. The anticipated ramp in energy storage will begin to undermine gas imminently.

This report makes it clear if you have not used natural gas a ‘bridge’ fuel to zero emissions already, then you are too late – and the current levels of investment will lead to devastating losses in both an economic and environmental sense.

This past quarter is probably the last unhindered quarter of solar business to have no adverse effects from Covid-19, but Rethink Energy has just put together the numbers for solar activity for 2019 – based on government and transmission numbers from a variety of organizations around the world.

This is the start of the Rethink Energy Solar Service, starting with the basic top down reporting data on installed solar during each quarter, initially just for what are traditionally the top countries, which currently represent about 90% of all solar installations each year around the world. Actually here we have included Vietnam, not because it traditionally contributes a fair percentage of solar installations, but because throughout this year it has suddenly jumped its installations tenfold.

In total we have tracked the market at 74.6 GW additions for the year globally, plus estimated additional 8 GW when we add in other parts of Europe, Asia, the Americas and the rest of the world. This takes the end of 2018 global total of 476.6 GW of solar, up to the new total of 559.3 GW of installed solar.
Tracking

The last quarter of 2019 saw a surge of installed onshore wind capacity, leaving the year as one of the strongest on record before Covid-19 squashes the sector’s momentum. Rethink Energy continues to track activity levels in all global markets, using figures from governments, transmission system operators and other organizations to monitor the penetration of wind through the transition to a decarbonized electricity mix.

This is the start of the Rethink Energy Wind Service, starting with the basic top down reporting data on installed wind power during each quarter for both onshore and offshore wind. This has entailed detailed analysis of the most active markets, which account for over 85% of installed capacity, including emerging markets like Taiwan which have indicated a wave of interest around wind power as a form of clean energy.

Through 2019, we have tracked 59.5 GW of installed wind capacity, including 14.0 GW from Europe, 11.4 GW from the Americas and 2.8 GW from the Rest of the World category (Including Eurasia, Oceania and Africa). The leading region by far though is the Asian market with 29.8 GW, itself dominated by China, which was responsible for 25.7 GW.

Installation activity has increased by 16%, from the 51.3 GW of capacity added globally in 2018. This takes the end of 2018 global total of 563.1 GW of wind power, up to the new total of 622.7 GW for the end of 2019.

This also leaves 2019 as the second most fruitful year for wind power, behind only 2015 when 63 GW of capacity was installed.

The offshore wind industry is poised for dramatic growth in the coming two decades and will involve the creation of 8 million jobs globally, and it will attract $1.3 trillion of cumulative investment, leading to the build out of over 400 GW of electricity generating capacity by 2040.

This vision comes from Rethink Energy’s latest forecast entitled, “Offshore wind to drive 8m jobs, is key to decarbonization,” a comprehensive global study on the technology and key drivers behind a market which shows no signs of slowing down in the run up to 2040.

Rethink Energy predicts that by 2030, the global offshore wind capacity will have risen from 25 GW today to 164 GW, before kicking on again as floating wind turbines emerge as a separate extra market during the 2030s. This will drive annual offshore wind installations towards 30 GW a year, leaving the world with 418 GW of wind energy by 2040, providing almost 5% of global electricity.

Companies mentioned in this report

Amazon, Belgian Offshore Platform, BP, Chartwell Marine, China Longyuan, Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, Dominion Energy, Doosan Group, EDF, Envision, Equinor, Formosa, General Electric, Goldwind, Hitachi, International Energy Agency, KEPCO, MHI Vestas, Mitsubishi, Nordex, Orsted, RWE, Samsung Heavy Industries, Senvion, Shanghai Electric, Shell, Siemens Gamesa, Supernode, Taipower, TenneT, Vattenfall, WindEurope, World Bank, WPD

For more information contact:
Natalia Szczepanek
Client Relations and Marketing Manager
[email protected]
Office: +44 (0)1179 257019

Global Forecast in floating solar to 2030

The Floating Solar market will emerge far more rapidly than anyone has previously forecast and will accumulate as much as 62 GW of capacity over as little as 10 years.

The key is opening up the market for reservoirs on dams, which will make up over 80% of the global installed marketplace. Huge sums of money are available from development banks to make this happen.

Already we are seeing massive projects in China, India and South Korea, which will change the nature of the marketplace to one made up of “mega-scale” GW plus projects, from the commonplace 1 MW projects of today and already this segment has a 10 GW pipeline.

The run rate for floating solar projects will move from 300 MW a year globally, to 9.4 GW in 2030, with some 8 GW of that all about adding solar capabilities to existing hydro reservoirs.

Companies mentioned in this report

Akuo Energy, BayWa.re., BBR Greentech, Canadian Commercial Corp, CECEP, Chip Mong Insee Cement, Ciel & Terre, DEME, Da Nhim–Ham Thuan–Da Mi Hydro Power, Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand, Electricidade de Mozambique, Energy Bank Japan, Eni New Energy, Eskom, Ghent University, Greater Visakhapatnam Smart City, Greenam Energy, GroenLeven, Isigenere, Jan De Nul Group, LONGi Solar, Marin, NRG Island, Nofar Energy, Ocean Sun, Pro Floating, Scotra, Seaflex Global, Soltech, South Korea’s MITIE, Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore, Sri Lanka Ministry of Power and Energy, Sungrow, Sunlution, Statkraft, Tata Solar Power, Tractebel, Vector Group, Vikram Solar, X-Elio, Zimfloat

For more information contact:
Natalia Szczepanek
Client Relations and Marketing Manager
[email protected]
Office: +44 (0)1179 257019

Energy Storage will grow from 6 GWh installed today to over 635 GWh cumulatively by 2030. Annual additions will go from 6 GWh in 2019 to 101 GWh by 2030, according to a report out this week from Rethink Technology Research’s Rethink Energy service.

Throughout this period of dramatic growth the Asia Pacific region, led by China will dominate installations with 273 GWh out of 635 GWh, or some 43% of all energy storage capacity, while the rest of Asia adds around 155 MWh or 24.5%. Europe will install some 20% of total cumulative capacity, and the US just 67.7 GW or some 10.7% of total global capacity. MEA and Latin America will effectively be left behind with a few percentage points each.

The key technology will be Lithium Ion batteries which have massive momentum, brought about by the arrival of Electronic Vehicles. The top 10 manufacturers alone have planned some 510 GWh of annual global factory capacity by 2030, with 45% of global Lithium Ion manufacturing capacity located in China and Europe and South Korea.

There will be plenty of room for alternative energy storage technologies such as Vanadium Flow and large storage GWh-class devices including ETES, Liquid air and Energy Vault cranes based systems, but without the huge investment in Lithium Ion batteries, this segment would not take off quite so rapidly. We estimate that 90% off the global energy storage market will remain Lithium based until a new technology emerges to lead, possibly by 2040.

Companies mentioned in this report

8Minute, AES Distributed Energy, BYD, CATL, CellCube, East Bay Community, Energy, EDF Renewables, EDP Renewables, Energy Vault, Equinor, LG Chem, Masdar, NGK Insulators, Northvolt, NV Energy, Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners, RedT, Rongke Power, sonnen, San José Clean Energy, Saft, Samsung, Svolt Energy, SK Innovation, Tesla

For more information contact:
Natalia Szczepanek
Client Relations and Marketing Manager
[email protected]
Office +44 (0)1179 257019