Want some hydropower? It does not come cheap!!!

Want some hydropower? It does not come cheap!!!

International Renewable Energy Agency published RE costs data for 2019.

Costs of energy change 2010-2019

Hydropower’s share of global renewable energy capacity fell from 76% (925 GW) in 2010 to just under 47% in 2019. Global installed hydropower capacity (excluding pumped hydro) was 1 189 GW at the end of 2019. It is the only widespread non-fossil energy source for which both cost of construction and cost of electricity (LCOE) increased over past decade.

Solar photovoltaic (PV) shows the sharpest cost decline over 2010-2019 at 82%, followed by concentrating solar power (CSP) at 47%, onshore wind at 40% and offshore wind at 29%.

At the same time hydropower shows 27% steady increase from 2010 costs up to 0,047 USD/kWh which makes it very close to 2019 cost for on-shore wind (0,053 USD/kWh).

Between 2010 and 2019, the global weighted-average total installed cost of new hydropower rose from USD 1 254/kW to USD 1 704/kW. And just from 2018 construction costs of hydropower increased 20% (this is according to conservative IRENA, while many other contemporary sources estimate hydropower costruction costs much higher – 3000 USD/kW and beyond). IRENA attributes increase in hydropower costs to the fact that hydropower is being built in more remote undeveloped regions, which requires additional costs for conquering wilderness…

In 2019 the construction costs for on-shore wind decreased to 1450 USD/kW, while those for solar photovoltaic fell sharply to 995 USD/kW.

Source: IRENA https://www.irena.org/publications/2020/Jun/Renewable-Power-Costs-in-2019