By Steve Goreham
Earlier this month, the Trump Administration announced a decision to apply a 30 percent tariff on imported solar cells and panels. The Solar Industries Association denounced the measure, projecting job losses and cancellation of solar investments. But the solar tariff discussion hides a larger renewable energy issue. Global investment in renewables has stalled in the US, in Europe, and in many markets across the world.
Since the 1990s, sustainable advocates have called for investment in wind, solar, and biofuel energy as the solution to global warming, pollution, and feared resource depletion. National, state, and provincial governments responded, promoting green energy with feed-in tariffs, renewable portfolio standards laws, renewable grid priority, and other subsidies and mandates. Carbon trading markets and carbon taxes were enacted to impose costs on hydrocarbon fuels to favor renewable energy.
These efforts resulted in a rapid rise in renewable deployments across the world. From 2004 to 2011, global renewable energy investment grew at a 26.7 percent compounded annual rate. By the end of 2012, more than 200,000 wind turbines were operating worldwide. Germany alone boasted more than one million solar rooftop installations.
But since 2011, investment in renewables has stalled. From 2011 to 2017, global green energy investment grew at only 0.7 percent per year—essentially flat. According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, 2017 investment in renewables grew only 1 percent in the US, but was down 16 percent in Japan, down 20 percent in India, down 26 percent in Germany, and down 56 percent in the United Kingdom. Investment in China was up 26 percent, supporting a meagre 3 percent global renewable investment growth in 2017.
European nations have the highest per person renewable investment in the world and extensive experience with renewables. Europe invested over $100 billion each year in renewable energy in 2010 and 2011. But last year Europe’s renewable investment was only $57.4 billion, down 50 percent from the record years of 2010‒2011.
So why is renewable investment faltering? One answer is that renewable projects are heavily dependent upon subsidies, and subsidies are being cut. The combination of rising electricity prices and budget-busting subsidy bills is forcing nations to cut back.
Europe invested $850 billion dollars in renewables from 2000 to 2014 and continues to pay a huge ongoing price. Residential electricity prices climbed to three times the US price in Spain and four times the US price in Denmark and Germany. German consumers pay an EEG levy in their electric bills, amounting to €25 billion a year to subsidize renewable energy. Environment minister Peter Altmaier estimates that cumulative renewable subsidies paid by German consumers will total an astonishing one trillion euros by 2040.
Over the last five years, subsidies or mandates have been cut in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Retroactive cuts to feed-in tariffs were made in Bulgaria, Greece, and Spain. Germany cut feed-in tariff subsidies by 75 percent and levied grid fees on residential solar owners. In 2015, the UK government suspended all new subsidies for onshore wind farms and reduced subsidies for residential solar installations, causing a steep fall in investment in both 2016 and 2017.
US subsidy cuts are also in process. The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2016 began a phased reduction of the wind Production Tax Credit (PTC) from 2016‒2019. If not extended again, the PTC subsidy will expire after 2019. The Act also reduced investment tax credits for wind and solar.
Some claim that renewable energy can power modern society. A 2017 paper by Mark Jacobsen and others at Stanford University, calls for 100 percent renewables by 2050, with wind and solar providing 95 percent of the energy. But this wishful thinking is not supported by the trends.
Since 1965, global energy consumption more than tripled to 13.3 billion tons of oil equivalent, according to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy. In 2016, wind and solar provided about two percent of the total. Each year the world consumes an additional United Kingdom worth of energy. Wind and solar sources are unable to supply even the annual growth in world demand, let alone replace our traditional energy sources.
Renewable energy investment has stagnated, buried by rising energy prices and unaffordable subsidies. The world is being forced to return to sensible energy policies based on cost, performance, and real environmental benefit.
Originally published in The Daily Caller. Steve Goreham is a speaker on the environment, business, and public policy and author of the new book Outside the Green Box: Rethinking Sustainable Development.
Staggering the high cost of renewables and the low power output. That is their way of soaking the rich.
I’m glad I live in Nebraska. My last electric bill, after (axes) and fees, 9.2 cents a Kwh.
The only renewable worth considering is Hydro in my opinion. At least then there’s watersports and such.
For all the money spent in Germany, they have not reduced their CO2 output or worse still their Coal use.
Which is still the same as it was 40 years ago.
The next subsidy crash will be EVs, in the few places that have already done so the sales have completely fallen, Hong Kong, down from 2000/annum to 39.
Yabut, when the “We are still In(credibly Stupid) campaign kicks things into high gear, look out. Renewables will be through the roof, I have it on good authority (Griff).
“Environment minister Peter Altmaier estimates that cumulative renewable subsidies paid by German consumers will total an astonishing one trillion euros by 2040.”
Peter Altmaier is not an environment minister, but a fat Minister of Chancellery, Merkel’s valet. But the rest is true, we Germans pay an insane price for a nonsensical power generation. In the meantime, because of this discrepancy, the environmental goals of 2020 have been completely abandoned, and the environmental goals of 2030 are being pushed into infinite distances in the space. Not that it would hurt me, but it’s our money, and that of all energy customers, which is outrageously distributed to those who have too much of it anyway. In no halfway developed country on the globe is the wealth gap between the upper class and the rest of the nation as large as in Germany, not even in the US or Putin country.
Furthermore, the plan is probably to invest even more in energy production types, which act more like # “Schildbürgerstreiche”, if anyone knows the citizen of Schilda….. Sunshine duration in Germany in the last winter months and in the winters before was at a record low. Some places have had less than 10 hours of sun since November. And yet, should now be invested more in solar energy, it sounds from the Greens and Sozen. It has been noticed that you can no longer sell windmills all over the country. There were even first attempted attacks on this. So you change to the next lame horse.
One of the interesting things about Ulaanbaatar is the enormous number of hybrid vehicles in use there. Specifically, Prius cars from Japan. They are about $7000 at the used car dealer.
One mans inanity is another man’s opportunity. Where there’s muck, there’s brass. One man’s garbage is another man’s gold.
The cost of transportation around the city has dropped in real terms because of these vehicles. In a land where literally every car is a taxi some of the time, there is a world class demonstration that hybrids are the way to go if you have some country willing to toss out their cars after only three years on the road (Japan).
Electric vehicles will never take over in Ulaanbaatar because it is too cold to warm the cabin most of the year.
After the arm waving and shouting reality kicks in. “You can’t fool all of the people all of the time…..”
Renewable energy is intermittent and unreliable.
If you add storage technology (Musks’s batteries or pumped storage etc), then is is not economically viable.
If there are no subsidies as the article writes…then the demand goes away. Can’t compete on a level playing field.
The rich and politically connected are sucking the lifeblood from taxpayers and ordinary energy ratepayers, under the banner of “save the world!” Without the subsidies, companies like General Electric are forced to streamline in order to survive.
Every year in the UK, RegenSW (a renewable energy trade body) publishes a renewable energy progress report. The latest one (for the year to end March 2017) is 6months overdue. I cannot imagine why!
Wind and Solar power apologists in 3…2…1……..
The usual babble that they are awesome will once again be met with hard evidence some of it already shown in the post they will not read.
Carry on.
Three trillion dollars or more spent on wind and solar since 2004, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, and perhaps a further ten trillion by 2050 if plans to go completely renewable are ever taken seriously. If you are in the wind and solar business, the thought of that ten trillion slipping out of your grasp must be maddening. Expect to see more and more predictions of climate catastrophes of biblical proportions in the next year or two.
If you want to understand the CAGW industry, just follow the money.
“investment in renewables has stalled”
Because it is NOT investment at all!:
It is a spending that will cost you more than you’ll gain/save of it. And, on the long run, this becomes more and more evident.
Now, if people find some pleasure in this spending, just fine for them. This I find as legitimate as any show, sport, fancy cooking, literature or whatever makes a heart happy. If (big if!) they use THEIR money and effort, and don’t bully people who do not share their pleasure.
“From 2011 to 2017, global green energy investment grew at only 0.7 percent per year—essentially flat”
I don’t see growth on that chart…looks like a negative number to me
Fantastic use of meaningless and misleading metrics there Steve. Investment in dollars is flat partly because the $/MWh has been decreasing. Investment in terms of MWh produced has not flattened. The “total energy” graph is also misleading since it counts the thermal content of coal that goes into producing electrons rather than the useful electrons produced. On that chart when we switch from coal to CCNG the “Total Energy” drops, even though the “Useful Energy” remains constant.
My other frequent point is “yeah, but look at ERCOT.” They have integrated more wind than Germany or Australia as a percentage of total electricity, and have some of the lowest electricity prices in the world. On top of that, ERCOT wind is expected to increase by almost 40% over the next 2 years pushing wind to nearly 30% of the electricity generation mix. Solar is likely to follow up to at least 5% in the same time frame, and this in a deregulated market that is driven by cost functions.
Please don’t try to one-up Michael Mann in misleading chartmanship. The reality is that renewables genuinely are the lowest cost source of new electricity production. They have the disadvantage of not being dispatchable and so face likely penetration limits in any grid. An open market for electricity will likely incorporate at least 30% of these two sources, but unlikely to incorporate more than 50% due to the additional required capital of storage. No source of electricity is likely to penetrate more than 10% into transportation (1/3 of personal transport) unless the cost of electricity decreases by at least 60%.
It doesn’t just need to stall, it needs to be dumped. When & if the usual energy sources become expensive enough that “renewables” are competitive without subsidies, then invest in them. Not until.
Love the author’s final graph. It says it all.
Just think of all the good that could have been done with all that money.
Just How Much Does 1 Degree C Cost?
Update: Post publishing this article new relevant data was released. It looks like much of the data used to support these spending projects is fraudulent, “Exposed: How world leaders were duped into investing billions over manipulated global warming data.” The question now becomes, do we want to spend a fortune based on GIGO models and … Continue reading
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/01/25/just-how-much-does-1-degree-c-cost/
$300 Billion is 1/3rd of a trillion dollars per year. That is a criminal amount of waste. Just think of all the good that could have been done with that kind of money. How many schools, hospitals, roads, bridges, water treatment, etc etc etc. What an absolute waste of money.
TRILLIONS of PUBLIC Dollars Spent on Conclusions Reached Based Upon “Made Up Data.”
According to the IPCC, the oceans are by far the most “dominant” influence on global climate energy balance. No other influence even comes close. Ocean warming dominates the increase in energy stored in the climate system, accounting for more than 90% of the energy accumulated between 1971 and 2010 (high confidence), with only about 1% stored … Continue reading
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/05/14/trillions-of-public-dollars-spent-on-conclusions-reached-based-upon-made-up-data/
But this can’t be right – the Greeeen Blobby keep shouting that Renewables are cheaper than conventional power generation……….. perhaps silly investors are learning it doesn’t always pay to trust enviro-activist claims ………….
As the source points out, one reason why investment is dropping in dollar terms is that the equipment, especially solar, is getting a lot cheaper.
perhaps with California’s “Energy Upgrade California” campaign the masses will continue to believe that paying more and getting less is an “upgrade”. From the commercials made for this campaign I am shocked they haven’t shown North Korea as the epitome of success on this “Energy Upgrade California” scheme. The latest one is something to the effect “Sally can run on her treadmill to generate electricity or unplug the toaster…. Energy Upgrade California”
Stupidity is an endless resource.
Joe! 🙁
My State of Oklahoma has stopped all future subsidies for windmills, as of July 1, of last year, and is going to start making the windmill companies pay state taxes, just like any other business.
I check my electric bill each month. The per KwH rate is $0.05844 for power, $.01351 for transmission, minus a discount for purchased power probably coming from the coal-fired plant to the north of me.
That’s a reasonable rate, certainly affordable even when the tax and other fees are added. The number of Kwhrs is higher than a year ago, but it’s because this past month has been colder than the same time period last winter, and that makes the furnace run longer. Gas-fired furnace, electric motor in the lower. In fact, the rate went down when I had a new blower motor installed three years ago; made it run like a new machine, and was more efficient.
Since solar/wind power production works mostly for individual dwellings, NOT at an industrial scale, the notion that it is cheaper is ludicrous. When people in Germany, a cold climate country, are freezing to death because they can’t afford the cost of the utility bill to heat their homes, there is something extremely wrong. Has Merkel admitted to this yet? I think I read some place that she was caving in because of the bad PR from cold-weather deaths of people who couldn’t pay their heating and electricity bills.