2014 Renewable Energy Report

pleppik

I saw the 2014 Renewable Energy Report this morning (warning: link is to a 10MB PDF file). A few interesting solar tidbits I picked out:

• The lowest-cost solar manufacturers have gotten their costs down to about $0.50/W and are profitable again.
• In 2013, the amount of new PV installed worldwide was up 32% from 2013, but the money spent on new PV dropped 22%. The disconnect is because of dropping PV prices. I suspect (the authors don't say) that a big chunk of this is because of the huge growth in China where installation labor is much cheaper than Europe, the U.S., or Japan.
• China almost tripled its PV capacity, and Japan almost doubled.
• In 19 markets worldwide, PV is competitive with grid power without subsidies.

zoneblue

Re: 2014 Renewable Energy Report

http://www.ren21.net/REN21Activities/GlobalStatusReport.aspx

pleppik

Re: 2014 Renewable Energy Report

zoneblue wrote: »

http://www.ren21.net/REN21Activities/GlobalStatusReport.aspx

Thanks--I forgot to add the link.

zoneblue

Re: 2014 Renewable Energy Report

pleppik wrote: »

Thanks--I forgot to add the link.

tldr: 39GW of new installed pv capacity added in 2013, taking the total to 139GW.

For the number challenged, thats 39 more nuke /dead dinosaur plants that are now redundant.

And, contrary to popular belief, the USA is not even close to being a leader in the field, the top 5 countrys per capita are all in europe.