Impact of Renewable Power Market Penetration on Coal Power Generation Capacity Growth

Abstract

Since renewable energy sources are growing in importance, how well they can penetrate the energy market for power generation will be a very important factor in the role the coal industry will play in the future. This paper examined the displacement of coal power plant capacity from 2010 to 2050 by renewables with respect to three drivers assumed under various conditions: the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), Greenhouse Gas (GHG) policy, and varying plant capital cost cases. The results by 2050 illustrate that renewable market penetration captures anywhere from 1.9% to 6.4% of potential coal power generation capacity additions. Renewable power generation capacity additions is expected to outpace coal power plant additions by 89% with respect to ARRA in 2050, however with no GHG policy coal power generation capacity build-outs will outpace renewables by as high as 809%. Finally, coal power generation is still projected to be the largest single energy source contributor to the electricity market making up 28.0% of total available capacity, while renewables are expected to only make up 16.3% of total available capacity. © The Editorial Office of Journal of Coal Science and Engineering (China) and Springer Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011.

Department(s)

Mining Engineering

Keywords and Phrases

Coal; Electricity; Policy; Power Generation; Renewable Energy

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

1006-9097; 1866-6566

Document Type

Article - Journal

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2011 Springer Verlag, All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Jan 2011

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