By Paul Homewood
The International Renewable Energy Agency, IRENA, makes no secret that its only objective is to promote renewable energy. It is an intergovernmental organization, with 169 member countries plus the EU.
One of its main tools is to convince governments and public that renewable energy is much cheaper than fossil fuels. They have produced this dashboard for onshore wind costs:
The UK costs are said to be $0.0314/kWh, which equates to about £25.12/MWh. Yet the clearing price for onshore wind at this year’s CfD auction was £50.90/MWh at 2012 prices, which uplifts to £69.91 at 2023 prices:
Clearly IRENA’s costs are not only fake, they are fraudulent. If the UK’s costings are wrong, no doubt every other country’s is as well.
In any event LCOEs, that is levelised costs, are meaningless, as they don’t include all of the indirect costs associated with intermittency.
It is worth noting that the BEIS levelised costings published last year, also an unrealistically low cost for onshore wind, though not quite as fanciful as IRENA’s.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/electricity-generation-costs-2023