Renewable energy power generation continues to be predicted as cheaper than Morrison Government's favoured fossil fuel alternatives

Renew Economy, 6 February 2010:

An updated study on current and future generation costs by the CSIRO and the Australian Energy Market Operator confirms that wind, solar and storage technologies are by far the cheapest form of low carbon options for Australia, and are likely to dominate the global energy mix in coming decades.

The first report, GenCost 2018, identified that wind and solar were by far the cheapest forms of new generation technologies, clearly cheaper than coal, and even when combined with storage, remained easily the cheapest form low carbon electricity options.

A draft of the updated study, GenCost 2019-20, has been quietly posted on the AEMO website and confirms that wind and solar and storage remain the cheapest technologies, now and into the future, and much cheaper than the technologies promoted by the Australian government – gas, carbon capture, and nuclear.

The study is jointly funded by the CSIRO and AEMO, although CSIRO took carriage of the report, along with advisors Aurecon, who succeeded GHD which did the first version.

Its capital cost estimates – which assume continue cost reductions for solar, wind and dramatic falls for batteries, remain little changed from the 2018 version, although wind cost reductions are lower than expected last year…..

Read the full draft report:

GenCost 2019-20: preliminary results for stakeholder review Draft for review, Paul Graham, Jenny Hayward, James Foster and Lisa Havas December 2019.

That neither expert opinion nor the Australian Government's international obligations matter to Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his hard right cronies is demonstrated by the fact that they are prepared to spend up to $4 million on a feasibility study for a 1GW coal-fired power plant at Collinsville in Queensland, with coal presumably sourced from a nearby open-cut coal mine owned by Glencore.

Glencore stategically places most of its political donations with state governments of the day.