The Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics (BREE) released the Australian Energy Technology Assessment (AETA) 2013 Model Update late last week.
This is an important document as the information it contains will be used as a basis for policy reviews next year; such as the Energy White Paper and Renewable Energy Target review.
The update states while renewable technologies currently have generally higher LCOEs* than the lowest cost non-renewable technologies, the relative LCOE rankings significantly change post 2030. Importantly, the LCOE of solar PV become lower than the non-renewables from mid-2030.
While fixed tilt PV solar power systems have not seen significant changes in current O&M (Operations and Maintenance) costs in the update, single axis tracking and dual axis tracking PV configurations are approximately 20-30 per cent reduced.
Concentrating solar power (solar thermal) O&M cost have been reduced between 8 per cent and 27 per cent.
“Comparing the 2012 AETA results without a carbon price to the 2013 results without a carbon price, there are significant reductions in the LCOE of solar technologies and onshore wind,” state the authors in the report’s conclusions. “This is as a consequence of changes to the fixed and variable Operations and Maintenance (O&M) costs for these technologies”
While the update details a reduction in onshore wind O&M costs of 18 per cent; a reduction in offshore wind fixed O&M costs is countered by a three-fold increase in variable O&M costs, resulting in an overall increase of 50 per cent total O&M costs for offshore wind.
The Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics is an economic research unit within the Australian Government Department of Industry. The full Australian Energy Technology Assessment 2013 Model Update can be viewed here (PDF).
*LCOE – Levelised Cost of Energy: the minimum cost of energy at which a generator must sell the produced electricity in order to achieve its desired economic return.
