In 2020, the entirety of global power generation growth came from renewable sources. It's a first, for many reasons. But, it's also only part of the global story, and what comes next is even more interesting. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, global power generation fell only two-tenths of a percent for all of 2020. Coal-fired power generation fell 3% year on year; gas-fired power fell 1%, and nuclear power declined 3%. Wind, solar, and hydropower all grew. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
It's worth zooming out on this chart a bit though. coal’s contribution to power generation growth is very evident through 2014 and again in 2017 and 2018. Natural gas power growth is also evident as are the steady additions of wind and solar power. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
And unfortunately for power sector emissions, nuclear power’s massive post-Fukushima drop in 2011 and 2012 is unmistakable. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Aggregate the global growth in power generation by source, and there's something noteworthy. Yes, coal leads, but only barely over gas; and gas is only barely past wind. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
And - the compound growth rate in generation from these technologies matters. A lot. Big base number, low growth. Smaller base number, higher growth. Coal grew 1.6% per year last decade. Solar grew 38.8% a year. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
What happens if you carry these generation CAGRs forward? In just one more year (2021) at this rate, wind (not coal or gas) would be biggest contributor to power generation since 2010. In three more years (2023)...it's solar. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
It may seem imaginative to suggest that in one year’s time wind will be the biggest contributor to power generation growth since 2010, and solar the biggest just two years later. It's not. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Seeing wind and solar's dominance of net power generation additions in a few years is the opposite of imaginative: it requires only an assumption that the next few years looks like the last decade /end bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

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More from @NatBullard

1 Dec
A short 🧵on challenges of even short-term forecasts of exponential markets: solar PV.
1. @IEA: 150+ gigawatts this year base case. Base is up from 2020, and it's already a bonkers figure: way more than biggest annual coal+gas additions ever iea.org/reports/renewa…
2. But that base is probably too low. And the accelerated case is right around where @BloombergNEF and @solar_chase have our case (~180GW), but as Jenny says, "there's always more solar than you think there is" so maybe that's low
3. Then there's this data, from @laurimyllyvirta: trailing 12 months of Chinese PV cell manufacturing output is 227 gigawatts (which is 50%+ of last year's global installations)!
Read 6 tweets
30 Nov
🧵1/ Some findings from @KPMG annual Global Automotive Exec Survey. Highlights on strategy, electric vehicles, commodities here. Start: 48% of execs say they're very/extremely prepared for the next crisis (or disruption - rather different those) home.kpmg/xx/en/home/ins…
🧵2/ Auto execs are quite concerned about commodity and component supply continuity home.kpmg/xx/en/home/ins…
🧵3/ By 2030 - execs think that most big markets will be ~50% EV sales...but Japan(!) same as China and US, and US ahead of W. Europe...and with massive quartile variation home.kpmg/xx/en/home/ins…
Read 11 tweets
30 Nov
🧵1/ Lithium-ion battery pack prices fell 6% year-on-year to $132 per kilowatt-hour (real 2021$). That's down 90% since 2010's $1240/kWh! But, there is much more to it than headline figures. Highlights from @BloombergNEF @JamesTFrith follow. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
2/ On a volume-weighted average basis across the battery industry, prices fell to $132 per kilowatt-hour in 2021. This is down from $140/kWh in 2020 (in real 2021 dollars). The 6% drop isn’t as drastic as the 9% decline we had forecast last year. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
3/ Why are this year’s prices higher than expected? The cost of raw materials used in the cathode — lithium, cobalt and nickel — and other key components including the electrolyte have risen this year, putting more pressure on the industry. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Read 12 tweets
10 Nov
Today @BloombergNEF published its Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Factbook. Great stuff in here, starting with this: EV sales were 7% of passenger vehicle total in 2Q 2021. 🧵/1 bloomberg.com/professional/d…
🧵/2 Expecting 5.6 million EVs sold this year, up from 3.1 million in 2020 bloomberg.com/professional/d…
🧵/3 Electric vehicle outlooks are more bullish every year bloomberg.com/professional/d…
Read 21 tweets
2 Sep
THREAD: Exactly 10 years ago, solar PV module manufacturer Solyndra went bankrupt. It's quite the story. VCs, Silicon Valley, the U.S. Treasury, trade, supply/demand, technology risk/innovation, competition.
And the most important thing, 10 years later? It doesn't matter at all.
2/ What it was: a solar novelty in (literally) multiple dimensions. Cadmium telluride thin-film PV, mounted in a glass tube, with a bespoke racking system only for commercial roofs, needing a special rubber roofing backsheet. Mounted, it looked like this:
3/ Why it was: conceived when crystalline silicon solar panels were 1/ very expensive 2/ relatively inefficient (compared to today) with 3/ scarce inputs and 4/ uncertain future supply - targeted at an underserved market
Read 29 tweets
19 Aug
It’s important to remember that from a climate perspective, nuclear and renewables are not in competition. There will be enough growth in electricity demand to support significant expansion of every zero-carbon power generation technology. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Nuclear could even wind up being essential to deep decarbonization in other sectors. One @BloombergNEF scenario for 0-carbon 2050 features massive deployment of modular nuclear reactors designed to complement wind, solar, and battery tech bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Still, getting nuclear power back on the growth curve is a decade-long process. The best time to have done it would have been 10 (or 20) years ago. The second-best time is right now. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Read 4 tweets

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