Europe's changing energy profile as wind and solar take hold; lithium prices down on fears of over-supply; AGL weighed down by emissions profile.
Putting Australia to one side we look at some figures from the Agora/Sandbag analysis of Europe's 2017 data. Of course, we are focused on the renewables side of things.
Across the Euro 28 countries, wind is 11% and solar PV 4% of consumption.
The numbers are held back, by and large, by Eastern Europe. Poland and the Czech republic remain coal dominated. About 14 GW of wind was installed and about 9 GW of PV in 2017. Selected countries in Fig 1 are by size of consumption, Germany largest.
Of the big consumers Germany has 18% wind and UK 14%. Italy is 8% PV, Germany 7% and Spain 5%.
Wind prices dropped through the year but by Australian standards onshore wind prices are high! The table below is by country and then date (earliest first). I converted at today's spot euro rate.
By the end of the year PV prices were down towards $52 MWh in France.
We'd note that not much PV was installed in Europe and that for both wind and PV the prices quoted are for contracts typically starting post 2017.
The weekly numbers in the NEM..
Another week of little note in the NEM. Demand is falling in its normal seasonal fashion. Gas and REC prices were steady or slightly soft.
Electricity futures are clearly below last year and continue to show a declining trend but not to a level that would change anything very much as far as consumers are concerned. In short, gas and electricity prices have fallen a bit but remain "elevated" by historic standards.
We have corrected some data bugs from last issue that readers had noted. Hopefully not too many left. Thanks everyone.
Bond prices fell although onl 10 bps. Oil was largely unchanged coal down 2% in USD.
Lithium shares have been hit by fears of oversupply. Interestingly AGL share price is below last year's level and has been massively outperformed by Origin (ORG) in the past 12 months. We see this as just a fund manager rotational play.
It was predictable that worries over ORG's balance sheet would eventually subside and that fund managers would look to lock in gains on AGL once futures prices stopped rising. For all AGL's talk it's worth recalling it remains by far Australia's largest CO2 emitter and this remains a long term liability.
I note "unsubsidised" is in inverted commas. That means subsidised, but by a less visible mechanism.
Like the invisible subsidy that FF enjoy by not factoring the cost to the environment of their emissions.
Well, in the case of biomass in Europe, the subsidy is entirely clear: they are not taxed on their CO2 emissions at all, whereas other fossil fuels are. That is of course in addition to direct subsidy payments.
Inverted comas are used to highlight the fact that PV-power is not subsidised in Portugal (illegal under EU market rules).
A FIT is not a subsidy under world trade/market rules.
The atom clowns keep saying that a RE-FIT is a subsidy.
As Zontag met Lubach pointed out, you'd put your d**k in a toaster if the EU told you it was underpants.