Wind and solar power generation topped gas-fired power plant output for the first time ever on a monthly basis in April, as the energy crunch limited gas availability and made the fuel more expensive.
Wind and solar installations generated 22% of the world’s electricity last month, climate outlet Ember reported, as cited by Reuters. Gas generation, meanwhile, accounted for 20% of the global total in April.
“The current energy crisis has further strengthened the economic case for renewables compared to imported gas, while also adding greater political urgency to accelerate deployment,” Ember global electricity analyst Kostantsa Rangelova said.
The above statement is arguable. The Strait of Hormuz crisis has affected a fifth of global liquefied natural gas production capacity, leading to surging prices and a switch from gas to coal across Asia, as the solid fuel remains the most affordable baseload generation option. Yet the crisis has also added momentum to wind and solar—especially solar—deployment as a fast alternative to hydrocarbons that are in increasingly short supply.
The parallel growth in wind and solar, on the one hand, and coal, on the other, is an interesting trend that suggests affordability remains the top priority for most. It undermines the argument in favor of a transition to wind and solar as reliable long-term alternatives to hydrocarbons, but it also highlights that they can be used as alternatives in times of tighter supply of gas, especially during peak output season for both wind turbines and solar panels.
What is more, as some observers have noted, the current shift in energy demand patterns will change as soon as the Strait of Hormuz reopens and gas flows return to pre-war levels.
“Some people are saying this oil-price spike will do what the Paris Agreement and EV mandates haven’t,” Bob McNally, founder of Rapidan Energy Group and former White House energy adviser, told Fortune recently, “which is to convince everybody to destroy demand for gasoline. “But busts follow booms,” McNally continued. “When oil prices drop, I think demand for EVs will wane. You’re on this roller coaster of oil prices.”
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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