Solar will soon be cheaper than coal, without subsidies -Solar will soon be cheaper than coal, without subsidies – Statkraft CEO
OSLO: Norway’s state owned power firm Statkraft expects a faster shift to renewable energies as the cost of new solar and wind capacity falls below coal, even without subsidies, in the next decade, CEO Christian Rynning-Toennesen said on Thursday.
* “There will be a lot of new business opportunities arising from the push into renewables. We need to adapt and look for these new possibilities”, Rynning-Toennesen told a conference in Oslo.
* “What we have seen is just the beginning”, he said.
* “Within around seven years we expect new solar to compete with the existing OPEX (operating expenses) of coal, meaning that we are reaching a point where new solar can compete away coal on a pure cost basis without any subsidies at all”.
* “In almost all our markets, new solar and new onshore wind are already the lowest cost technologies of any type when it comes to new electricity.”
* “Here in Scandinavia, new onshore wind is the cheapest form of new electricity that we can bring onto the grid.”
* Rynning-Toennesen said that this combined with systems of additional revenues for renewable energy has brought an “enormous growth and it continues both in Europe and in emerging markets.”
* “These are also technologies that are not difficult to construct. You don’t need a big skill set to set up a solar or wind park.”
* “So the barriers are low to enter the market and the possibilities for new companies who have never been in the energy industry are there and the competition is extremely strong”, said Rynning-Toennesen.
Source: Reuters
