Reasons for the rapid decline in the cost of new energy storage

Will energy costs decline further in the future?

Those costs are projected to decline further in the near future, bringing new prospects for the widespread penetration of renewables and extensive power-sector decarbonization that previous policy discussions did not fully consider.

How will low-cost renewables affect solar power?

As expec-ted, rapid decreases in the costs of renewable energy sources lead to the larger installation of wind and solar capacity. By 2030, the low-cost renewables (R) scenario, compared with the BAU sce-nario, would lead to an increase in wind capacity from 660 to 850 GW and in solar capacity from 350 to 1260 GW.

Is the expansion of renewables underestimated?

Energy scenarios are an approach to assess these paths and to find ways how such a transformation can succeed (e.g. Refs. [, , , , ]). However, if the deployment of renewables is retrospectively compared to global energy scenarios from recent years, it can be observed that the expansion of renewables has often been underestimated.

Will low-cost renewables increase wind and solar capacity in 2030?

As expected, rapid decreases in the costs of renewable energy sources lead to the larger installation of wind and solar capacity. By 2030, the low-cost renewables (R) scenario, compared with the BAU scenario, would lead to an increase in wind capacity from 660 to 850 GW and in solar capacity from 350 to 1260 GW.

Are cost declines structurally underestimated?

Our results indicate that the trend of rapid cost declines has been structurally underestimated in virtually all future energy scenario analyses and suggest that even the most recent studies refer to obsolete or very conservative values. This leads to underestimating the future role and level of deployment of renewable technologies.

Do studies overestimate future costs of renewables?

In other words, most studies overestimate future costs of renewables. A particularly dramatic case is solar PV, where observed costs for 2019 are lower than many assumptions used in energy scenarios for 2050. The studies with lower (and thus more correct) cost assumptions, were subject to strong criticism in the past (see e.g. Refs. [8, 9]).