There’s good news for governments as they continue the shift to renewable energy, and possibly a bonus for consumers too. A global survey of 140 experts has concluded that the cost of wind energy will continue to fall due to technological and commercial advances.
In the report published in the Nature Energy journal, the experts led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) anticipated cost reductions ranging between 17% and 35% by 2035, and between 37% and 49% by 2050 against 2019 baseline values.
The key technological advance will be the creation of larger, more efficient wind turbines. These will be cheaper to create and operate and help to drive the costs down. By 2035, the experts predict that average onshore turbines to be 5.5MW, and offshore wind turbines 17MW.
“Wind has experienced accelerated cost reductions in recent years, both onshore and offshore, making previous cost forecasts obsolete,” said Ryan Wiser, senior scientist at Berkeley Lab.
“All else being equal, these trends will enable wind to play a larger role in global energy supply than previously thought while facilitating energy-sector decarbonisation,” said co-author Joachim Seel.
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