Page - 36 - in Clean Water Using Solar and Wind - Outside the Power Grid

36 Clean Water Using Solar and Wind: Outside the Power Grid with a small investment in power generation. When there is demand for increased power generation, then more modules can be added. An important issue is project lead times; solar PV has the shortest of any power-generation technology. Furthermore, the mounting of solar PV panels does not require sophisticated equipment or highly trained personnel. Scaling up the power capacity in the future is also possible. 3.4 COST DEVELOPMENT OF SOLAR PV AND WIND The falling cost of renewable energy technologies, notably solar and wind power, contributes considerably to the growing competitiveness of renewables versus conventional fossil fuels, as shown in Figure 1.2. Already today renewables like onshore wind, biomass, geothermal and hydropower energy are all competitive with or cheaper than any fossil fuel power stations, even without subsidies and despite relatively low oil prices (IRENA, 2017a). For obvious reasons, offshore wind and small-scale rooftop solar are about twice as expensive as onshore wind and utility-scale PV. Costs for renewable energy technologies have fallen dramatically in recent years. The cost of solar PV modules decreased by 80% between 2009 and 2016. The prices for wind turbines declined by some 40% over the same period (IRENA, 2017a). This does not include the costs of balancing the grid system or compensating for the intermittent production. This will be the next economic challenge for solar and wind systems. As well as the solar panels or wind turbines the cost includes electrical system costs, costs for permits and installation. In an off-grid system the cost for energy storage should be taken into consideration (see also Chapter 10). If the high social costs of pollution from extracting and burning natural gas or coal are taken into consideration, then renewables are even more competitive. This is demonstrated in China, where wind power already exceeded the contribution from nuclear power in terms of capacity in 2009 and in terms of electric energy generated in 2012 (Mathews, 2016). Traditional cost estimates for electric energy do not consider the high social costs of pollution from extracting and burning coal or natural gas. Downloaded from https://iwaponline.com/ebooks/book-pdf/520710/wio9781780409443.pdf by IWA Publishing user