SolarÂ’s future looking brighter

Offshore wind power accelerates low-carbon electrification, leveraging floating turbines, high capacity factors, HVDC transmission, and hydrogen production to decarbonize grids, cut CO2, and deliver competitive, reliable renewable energy near demand centers.

Key Points

Offshore wind power uses offshore turbines to deliver low-carbon electricity with high capacity factors and falling costs.

✅ Sea-based wind farms with 40-50% capacity factors

✅ Floating turbines unlock deep-water, far-shore resources

✅ Enables hydrogen production and strengthens grid reliability

The need for affordable low-carbon technologies is greater than ever

Global energy-related CO2 emissions reached a historic high in 2018, driven by an increase in coal use in the power sector. Despite impressive gains for renewables, fossil fuels still account for nearly two-thirds of electricity generation, the same share as 20 years ago. There are signs of a shift, with increasing pledges to decarbonise economies and tackle air pollution, and with World Bank support helping developing countries scale wind, but action needs to accelerate to meet sustainable energy goals. As electrification of the global energy system continues, the need for clean and affordable low-carbon technologies to produce this electricity is more pressing than ever. This World Energy Outlook special report offers a deep dive on a technology that today has a total capacity of 23 GW (80% of it in Europe) and accounts for only 0.3% of global electricity generation, but has the potential to become a mainstay of the world's power supply. The report provides the most comprehensive analysis to date of the global outlook for offshore wind, its contributions to electricity systems and its role in clean energy transitions.

The offshore wind market has been gaining momentum

The global offshore wind market grew nearly 30% per year between 2010 and 2018, benefitting from rapid technology improvements. Over the next five years, about 150 new offshore wind projects are scheduled to be completed around the world, pointing to an increasing role for offshore wind in power supplies. Europe has fostered the technology's development, led by the UK offshore wind sector alongside Germany and Denmark. The United Kingdom and Germany currently have the largest offshore wind capacity in operation, while Denmark produced 15% of its electricity from offshore wind in 2018. China added more capacity than any other country in 2018.

The untapped potential of offshore wind is vast

The best offshore wind sites could supply more than the total amount of electricity consumed worldwide today. And that would involve tapping only the sites close to shores. The IEA initiated a new geospatial analysis for this report to assess offshore wind technical potential country by country. The analysis was based on the latest global weather data on wind speed and quality while factoring in the newest turbine designs. Offshore wind's technical potential is 36 000 TWh per year for installations in water less than 60 metres deep and within 60 km from shore. Global electricity demand is currently 23 000 TWh. Moving further from shore and into deeper waters, floating turbines could unlock enough potential to meet the world's total electricity demand 11 times over in 2040. Our new geospatial analysis indicates that offshore wind alone could meet several times electricity demand in a number of countries, including in Europe, the United States and Japan. The industry is adapting various floating foundation technologies that have already been proven in the oil and gas sector. The first projects are under development and look to prove the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of floating offshore wind technologies.

Offshore wind's attributes are very promising for power systems

New offshore wind projects have capacity factors of 40-50%, as larger turbines and other technology improvements are helping to make the most of available wind resources. At these levels, offshore wind matches the capacity factors of gas- and coal-fired power plants in some regions – though offshore wind is not available at all times. Its capacity factors exceed those of onshore wind and are about double those of solar PV. Offshore wind output varies according to the strength of the wind, but its hourly variability is lower than that of solar PV. Offshore wind typically fluctuates within a narrower band, up to 20% from hour to hour, than solar PV, which varies up to 40%.

Offshore wind's high capacity factors and lower variability make its system value comparable to baseload technologies, placing it in a category of its own – a variable baseload technology. Offshore wind can generate electricity during all hours of the day and tends to produce more electricity in winter months in Europe, the United States and China, as well as during the monsoon season in India. These characteristics mean that offshore wind's system value is generally higher than that of its onshore counterpart and more stable over time than that of solar PV. Offshore wind also contributes to electricity security, with its high availability and seasonality patterns it is able to make a stronger contribution to system needs than other variable renewables. In doing so, offshore wind contributes to reducing CO2 and air pollutant emissions while also lowering the need for investment in dispatchable power plants. Offshore wind also has the advantage of avoiding many land use and social acceptance issues that other variable renewables are facing.

Offshore wind is on track to be a competitive source of electricity

Offshore wind is set to be competitive with fossil fuels within the next decade, as well as with other renewables including solar PV. The cost of offshore wind is declining and is set to fall further. Financing costs account for 35% to 50% of overall generation cost, and supportive policy frameworks are now enabling projects to secure low cost financing in Europe, with zero-subsidy tenders being awarded. Technology costs are also falling. The levelised cost of electricity produced by offshore wind is projected to decline by nearly 60% by 2040. Combined with its relatively high value to the system, this will make offshore wind one of the most competitive sources of electricity. In Europe, recent auctions indicate that offshore wind will soon beat new natural gas-fired capacity on cost and be on a par with solar PV and onshore wind. In China, offshore wind is set to become competitive with new coal-fired capacity around 2030 and be on par with solar PV and onshore wind. In the United States, recent project proposals indicate that offshore wind will soon be an affordable option, even as the 1 GW timeline continues to evolve, with potential to serve demand centres along the country's east coast.

Innovation is delivering deep cost reductions in offshore wind, and transmission costs will become increasingly important. The average upfront cost to build a 1 gigawatt offshore wind project, including transmission, was over $4 billion in 2018, but the cost is set to drop by more than 40% over the next decade. This overall decline is driven by a 60% reduction in the costs of turbines, foundations and their installation. Transmission accounts for around one-quarter of total offshore wind costs today, but its share in total costs is set to increase to about one-half as new projects move further from shore. Innovation in transmission, for example through work to expand the limits of direct current technologies, will be essential to support new projects without raising their overall costs.

Offshore wind is set to become a $1 trillion business

Offshore wind power capacity is set to increase by at least 15-fold worldwide by 2040, becoming a $1 trillion business. Under current investment plans and policies, the global offshore wind market is set to expand by 13% per year, reflecting its growth despite Covid-19 in recent years, passing 20 GW of additions per year by 2030. This will require capital spending of $840 billion over the next two decades, almost matching that for natural gas-fired or coal-fired capacity. Achieving global climate and sustainability goals would require faster growth: capacity additions would need to approach 40 GW per year in the 2030s, pushing cumulative investment to over $1.2 trillion. 

The promising outlook for offshore wind is underpinned by policy support in an increasing number of regions. Several European North Seas countries – including the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark – have policy targets supporting offshore wind. Although a relative newcomer to the technology, China is quickly building up its offshore wind industry, aiming to develop a project pipeline of 10 GW by 2020. In the United States, state-level targets and federal incentives are set to kick-start the U.S. offshore wind surge in the coming years. Additionally, policy targets are in place and projects under development in Korea, Japan, Chinese Taipei and Viet Nam.

 The synergies between offshore wind and offshore oil and gas activities provide new market opportunities. Since offshore energy operations share technologies and elements of their supply chains, oil and gas companies started investing in offshore wind projects many years ago. We estimate that about 40% of the full lifetime costs of an offshore wind project, including construction and maintenance, have significant synergies with the offshore oil and gas sector. That translates into a market opportunity of $400 billion or more in Europe and China over the next two decades. The construction of foundations and subsea structures offers potential crossover business, as do practices related to the maintenance and inspection of platforms. In addition to these opportunities, offshore oil and gas platforms require electricity that is often supplied by gas turbines or diesel engines, but that could be provided by nearby wind farms, thereby reducing CO2 emissions, air pollutants and costs.

Offshore wind can accelerate clean energy transitions

Offshore wind can help drive energy transitions by decarbonising electricity and by producing low-carbon fuels. Over the next two decades, its expansion could avoid between 5 billion and 7 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions from the power sector globally, while also reducing air pollution and enhancing energy security by reducing reliance on imported fuels. The European Union is poised to continue leading the wind energy at sea in Europe industry in support of its climate goals: its offshore wind capacity is set to increase by at least fourfold by 2030. This growth puts offshore wind on track to become the European Union's largest source of electricity in the 2040s. Beyond electricity, offshore wind's high capacity factors and falling costs makes it a good match to produce low-carbon hydrogen, a versatile product that could help decarbonise the buildings sector and some of the hardest to abate activities in industry and transport. For example, a 1 gigawatt offshore wind project could produce enough low-carbon hydrogen to heat about 250 000 homes. Rising demand for low-carbon hydrogen could also dramatically increase the market potential for offshore wind. Europe is looking to develop offshore "hubs" for producing electricity and clean hydrogen from offshore wind.

It's not all smooth sailing

Offshore wind faces several challenges that could slow its growth in established and emerging markets, but policy makers and regulators can clear the path ahead. Developing efficient supply chains is crucial for the offshore wind industry to deliver low-cost projects. Doing so is likely to call for multibillion-dollar investments in ever-larger support vessels and construction equipment. Such investment is especially difficult in the face of uncertainty. Governments can facilitate investment of this kind by establishing a long-term vision for offshore wind and by drawing on U.K. policy lessons to define the measures to be taken to help make that vision a reality. Long-term clarity would also enable effective system integration of offshore wind, including system planning to ensure reliability during periods of low wind availability.

The success of offshore wind depends on developing onshore grid infrastructure. Whether the responsibility for developing offshore transmission lies with project developers or transmission system operators, regulations should encourage efficient planning and design practices that support the long-term vision for offshore wind. Those regulations should recognise that the development of onshore grid infrastructure is essential to the efficient integration of power production from offshore wind. Without appropriate grid reinforcements and expansion, there is a risk of large amounts of offshore wind power going unused, and opportunities for further expansion could be stifled. Development could also be slowed by marine planning practices, regulations for awarding development rights and public acceptance issues.

The future of offshore wind looks bright but hinges on the right policies

The outlook for offshore wind is very positive as efforts to decarbonise and reduce local pollution accelerate. While offshore wind provides just 0.3% of global electricity supply today, it has vast potential around the world and an important role to play in the broader energy system. Offshore wind can drive down CO2 emissions and air pollutants from electricity generation. It can also do so in other sectors through the production of clean hydrogen and related fuels. The high system value of offshore wind offers advantages that make a strong case for its role alongside other renewables and low-carbon technologies. Government policies will continue to play a critical role in the future of offshore wind and  the overall pace of clean energy transitions around the world.

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Ontario Utilities Hurricane Irma Aid mobilizes Hydro One and Toronto Hydro crews to Tampa Bay, Florida, restoring power outages with bucket trucks, lineworkers, and mutual aid alongside Florida Power & Light after catastrophic damage.

Key Points

Mutual aid sending Hydro One and Toronto Hydro crews to Florida to restore power after Hurricane Irma.

✅ 205 workers, 52 bucket trucks, 30 support vehicles deployed

✅ Crews assist Tampa Bay under FPL mutual aid agreements

✅ Weeks-long restoration projected after catastrophic outages

Hurricane Irma has left nearly 7 million homes in the southern United States without power and two Ontario hydro utility companies are sending teams to help out as part of Canadian power crews responding to the disaster.

Toronto Hydro is sending 30 staffers to aid in the restoration efforts in Tampa Bay while Hydro One said Sunday night that it would send 175 employees after receiving a request from Florida Power and Light.

“I've been on other storms down in the states and they are pretty happy to see you especially when they find out you're from Canada,” Dean Edwards, one of the Hydro One employees heading to Florida, told CTV Toronto.

Most of the employees are expected to cross the border on Monday afternoon and arrive Wednesday.

Among the crews, Hydro One says it will send 150 lines and forestry staff, as well as 25 supporting resources, including mechanics, to help. Crews will bring 52 bucket trucks to Florida, as well as 30 other vehicles, reflecting their Ontario storm restoration experience with large-scale deployments, and pieces of equipment to transport and replace poles.

Hurricane Irma has claimed at least 45 lives in the Caribbean and United States thus far. Officials estimate that restoring power to Florida will take weeks to bring power back online.

“I’m sure a lot of people wish they could go down and help, fortunately our job is geared towards that so we're going to go down there to do our best and represent Canada,” said Blair Clarke, who’s making his first trip over the border.

Hydro One has reciprocal arrangements with other North American utilities to help with significant power outages, and its employees have provided COVID-19 support in Ontario as part of broader emergency efforts. All the costs are covered by the utility receiving the help.

In the past, the utility has sent crews to Massachusetts, Michigan, Florida, Ohio, Vermont, Washington, DC, and the Carolinas, while Sudbury Hydro crews have worked to reconnect service after storms at home as well. In 2012, 225 Hydro One employees travelled to Long Island, N.Y., to help out with Hurricane Sandy.

“This is what our guys and gals do,” Natalie Poole-Moffat, vice president of Corporate Affairs for Hydro One, told CP24. “They’re fabulous at it and we’re really proud of the work they do.”

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White Pines Project cancellation highlights Ontario's wind farm contract dispute in Prince Edward County, involving IESO approvals, Progressive Conservatives' legislation, potential court action, and costs to ratepayers amid green energy policy shifts.

Key Points

The termination effort for Ontario's White Pines wind farm contract, triggering legal, legislative, and cost disputes.

✅ Contract with IESO dates to 2009; final approval during election

✅ PCs seek legislation insulating taxpayers from litigation

✅ Cancellation could exceed $100M; cost impact on ratepayers

Cancelling an eastern Ontario green energy project that has been under development for nearly a decade could cost more than $100 million, the president of the company said Wednesday, warning that the dispute could be headed to the courts.

Ontario's governing Progressive Conservatives said this week that one of their first priorities during the legislature's summer sitting would be to cancel the contract for the White Pines Project in Prince Edward County.

Ian MacRae, president of WPD Canada, the company behind the project, said he was stunned by the news given that the project is weeks away from completion.

"What our lawyers are telling us is we have a completely valid contract that we've had since 2009 with the (Independent Electricity System Operator). ... There's no good reason for the government to breach that contract," he said.

The government has also not reached out to discuss the cancellation, he said. Meanwhile, construction on the site is in full swing, he said.

"Over the last couple weeks we've had an average of 100 people on site every day," he said. "The footprint of the project is 100 per cent in. So, all the access roads, the concrete for the base foundations, much of the electrical infrastructure. The sub-station is nearing completion."

The project includes nine wind turbines meant to produce enough electricity to power just over 3,000 homes annually, even as Ontario looks to build on an electricity deal with Quebec for additional supply. All of the turbines are expected to be installed over the next three weeks, with testing scheduled for the following month.

MacRae couldn't say for certain who would have to pay for the cancellation, electricity ratepayers or taxpayers.

"Somehow that money would come from IESO and it would be my assumption that would end up somehow on the ratepayers, despite legislation to lower electricity rates now in place," he said. "We just need to see what the government has in mind and who will foot the bill."

Progressive Conservative house leader Todd Smith, who represents the riding where the project is being built, said the legislation to cancel the project will also insulate taxpayers from domestic litigation over the dismantling of green energy projects.

"This is something that the people of Prince Edward County have been fighting ... for seven years," he said. "This shouldn't have come as a surprise to anybody that this was at the top of the agenda for the incoming government, which has also eyed energy independence in recent decisions."

Smith questioned why Ontario's Independent Electricity System Operator gave the final approval for the project during the spring election campaign.

"There's a lot of questions about how this ever got greenlighted in the first place," he said. "This project was granted its notice to proceed two days into the election campaign ... when (the IESO) should have been in the caretaker mode."

Terry Young, the IESO's vice president of policy, engagement and innovation, said the agency could not comment because of the pending introduction of legislation to cancel the deal, following a recent auditor-regulator dispute that drew attention to oversight.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said the new Tory government is behaving like the previous Liberal government by cancelling energy projects and tearing up contracts amid ongoing debates over Ontario's hydro mess and affordability. She likened the Tory plan to the Liberal gas plant scandal that saw the government relocate two plants at a substantial cost to taxpayers.

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Home Energy Independence reduces electricity costs and outage risks with solar panels, EV charging, battery storage, net metering, and smart inverters, helping homeowners offset tiered rates and improve grid resilience and reliability.

Key Points

Home Energy Independence pairs solar, batteries, and smart EV charging to lower bills and keep power on during outages.

✅ Offset rising electricity rates via solar and net metering

✅ Add battery storage for backup power and peak shaving

✅ Optimize EV charging to avoid tiered rate penalties

The Department of Energy recently warned that two-thirds of the U.S. is at risk of losing power this summer. It’s an increasingly common refrain: Homeowners want to be less reliant on the aging power grid and don’t want to be at the mercy of electric utilities due to rising energy costs and dwindling faith in the power grid’s reliability.

And it makes sense. While the inflated price of eggs and butter made headlines earlier this year, electricity prices quietly increased at twice the rate of overall inflation in 2022, even as studies indicate renewables aren’t making power more expensive overall, and homeowners have taken notice. In fact, according to Aurora Solar’s Industry Snapshot, 62% expect energy prices will continue to rise.

Homeowners aren’t just frustrated that electricity is pricey when they need it, they’re also worried it won’t be available at all when they feel the most vulnerable. Nearly half (48%) of homeowners are concerned about power outages stemming from weather events, or grid imbalances from excess solar in some regions, followed closely by outages due to cyberattacks on the power grid.

These concerns around reliability and cost are creating a deep lack of confidence in the power grid. Yet, despite these growing concerns, homeowners are increasingly using electricity to displace other fuel sources.

The electrification of everything
From electric heat pumps to electric stoves and clothes dryers, homeowners are accelerating the electrification of their homes. Perhaps the most exciting example is electric vehicle (EV) adoption and the need for home charging. With major vehicle makers committing to ambitious electric vehicle targets and even going all-electric in the future, EVs are primed to make an even bigger splash in the years to come.

The by-product of this electrification movement is, of course, higher electric bills because of increased consumption. Homeowners also risk paying more for every unit of energy they use if they’re part of a tiered pricing utility structure, where energy-insecure households often pay 27% more on electricity because customers are charged different rates based on the total amount of energy they use. Many new electric vehicle owners don’t realize this until they are deep into purchasing their new vehicle, or even when they open that first electric bill after the car is in their driveway.

Sure, this electrification movement can feel counterintuitive given the power grid concerns. But it’s actually the first step toward energy independence, and emerging models like peer-to-peer energy sharing could amplify that over time.

Balancing conflicting movements
The fact is that electrification is moving forward quickly, even among homeowners who are concerned about electricity prices and power grid reliability, and about why the grid isn’t yet 100% renewable in the U.S. This has the potential to lead to even more discontent with electric utilities and growing anxiety over access to electricity in extreme situations. There is a third trend, though, that can help reconcile these two conflicting movements: the growth of solar.

The popularity of solar is likely higher than you think: Nearly 77% of homeowners either have solar panels on their homes or are interested in purchasing solar. The Aurora Solar Industry Snapshot report also showed a nearly 40% year-over-year increase in residential solar projects across the U.S. in 2022, as the country moves toward 30% power from wind and solar overall, aligning with the Solar Energy Industries Association’s (SEIA) Solar Market Insight Report, which found, “Residential solar had a record year [in 2022] with nearly 6 GWdc of installations, representing 40% growth over 2021.”

It makes sense that finding ways to tamp down—even eliminate—growing bills caused by the electrification of homes is accelerating interest in solar, as more households weigh whether residential solar is worth it for their budgets, and residential solar installers are seeing this firsthand. The link between EVs and solar is a great proof point: Almost 80% of solar professionals said EV adoption often drives new interest in solar. 

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Africa 2030 Energy Mix Forecast finds electricity generation doubling, with fossil fuels dominant, non-hydro renewables under 10%, hydro vulnerable to droughts, and machine-learning analysis of planned power plants shaping climate and investment decisions.

Key Points

An analysis predicting Africa's 2030 power mix, with fossil fuels dominant, limited renewables growth, and hydro risks.

✅ ML model assesses 2,500 planned plants' commissioning odds

✅ Fossil fuels ~66% of generation; non-hydro RE <10% by 2030

✅ Policy shifts and finance reallocation to scale solar and wind

New research today from the University of Oxford predicts that total electricity generation across the African continent will double by 2030, with fossil fuels continuing to dominate the energy mix posing potential risk to global climate change commitments.

The study, published in Nature Energy, uses a state-of-the art machine-learning technique to analyse the pipeline of more than 2,500 currently-planned power plants and their chances of being successfully commissioned. It shows the share of non-hydro renewables in African electricity generation is likely to remain below 10% in 2030, although this varies by region.

'Africa's electricity demand is set to increase significantly as the continent strives to industrialise and improve the wellbeing of its people, which offers an opportunity to power this economic development and expand universal electricity access through renewables' says Galina Alova, study lead author and researcher at the Oxford Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment.

'There is a prominent narrative in the energy planning community that the continent will be able to take advantage of its vast renewable energy resources and rapidly decreasing clean technology prices to leapfrog to renewables by 2030 but our analysis shows that overall it is not currently positioned to do so.'

The study predicts that in 2030, fossil fuels will account for two-thirds of all generated electricity across Africa. While an additional 18% of generation is set to come from hydro-energy projects across Africa. These have their own challenges, such as being vulnerable to an increasing number of droughts caused by climate change.

The research also highlights regional differences in the pace of the transition to renewables across Sub-Saharan Africa, with southern Africa leading the way. South Africa alone is forecast to add almost 40% of Africa's total predicted new solar capacity by 2030.

'Namibia is committed to generate 70% of its electricity needs from renewable sources, including all the major alternative sources such as hydropower, wind and solar generation, by 2030, as specified in the National Energy Policy and in Intended Nationally Determined Contributions under Paris Climate Change Accord,' says Calle Schlettwein, Namibia Minister of Water (former Minister of Finance and Minister of Industrialisation). 'We welcome this study and believe that it will support the refinement of strategies for increasing generation capacity from renewable sources in Africa and facilitate both successful and more effective public and private sector investments in the renewable energy sector.'

Minister Schlettwein adds: 'The more data-driven and advanced analytics-based research is available for understanding the risks associated with power generation projects, the better. Some of the risks that could be useful to explore in the future are the uncertainties in hydrological conditions and wind regimes linked to climate change, and economic downturns such as that caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.'

The study further suggests that a decisive move towards renewable energy in Africa would require a significant shock to the current system. This includes large-scale cancellation of fossil fuel plants currently being planned. In addition, the study identifies ways in which planned renewable energy projects can be designed to improve their success chances for example, smaller size, fitting ownership structure, and availability of development finance for projects.

'The development community and African decision makers need to act quickly if the continent wants to avoid being locked into a carbon-intense energy future' says Philipp Trotter, study author and researcher at the Smith School. 'Immediate re-directions of development finance from fossil fuels to renewables are an important lever to increase experience with solar and wind energy projects across the continent in the short term, creating critical learning curve effects.'

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Nuclear Energy Growth accelerates as nations pursue decarbonization, complement renewables, displace coal, and ensure grid reliability with firm, low-carbon baseload, benefiting from standardized builds, lower cost of capital, and learning-curve cost reductions.

Key Points

Expansion of nuclear capacity to cut CO2, complement renewables, replace coal, and stabilize grids at low-carbon cost.

✅ Complements renewables; displaces coal for faster decarbonization

✅ Cuts system costs via standardization and lower cost of capital

✅ Provides firm, low-carbon baseload and grid reliability

By Kirill Komarov, Chairman, World Nuclear Association.

As Europe and the wider world begins to wake up to the need to cut emissions, Dr Kirill Komarov argues that tackling climate change will see the use of nuclear energy grow in the coming years, not as a competitor to renewables but as a competitor to coal.

The nuclear industry keeps making headlines and spurring debates on energy policy, including the green industrial revolution agenda in several countries. With each new build project, the detractors of nuclear power crowd the bandwagon to portray renewables as an easy and cheap alternative to ‘increasingly costly’ nuclear: if solar and wind are virtually free why bother splitting atoms?

Yet, paradoxically as it may seem, if we are serious about policy response to climate change, nuclear energy is seeing an atomic energy resurgence in the coming decade or two.

Growth has already started to pick up with about 3.1 GW new capacity added in the first half of 2018 in Russia and China while, at the very least, 4GW more to be completed by the end of the year – more than doubling the capacity additions in 2017.

In 2019 new connections to the grid would exceed 10GW by a significant margin.

If nuclear is in decline, why then do China, India, Russia and other countries keep building nuclear power plants?

To begin with, the issue of cost, argued by those opposed to nuclear, is in fact largely a bogus one, which does not make a fully rounded like for like comparison.

It is true that the latest generation reactors, especially those under construction in the US and Western Europe, have encountered significant construction delays and cost overruns.

But the main, and often the only, reason for that is the ‘first-of-a-kind’ nature of those projects.

If you build something for the first time, be it nuclear, wind or solar, it is expensive. Experience shows that with series build, standardised construction economies of scale and the learning curve from multiple projects, costs come down by around one-third; and this is exactly what is already happening in some parts of the world.

Furthermore, those first-of-a-kind projects were forced to be financed 100% privately and investors had to bear all political risks. It sent the cost of capital soaring, increasing at one stroke the final electricity price by about one third.

While, according to the International Energy Agency, at 3% cost of capital rate, nuclear is the cheapest source of energy: on average 1% increase adds about US$6-7 per MWh to the final price.

When it comes to solar and wind, the truth, inconvenient for those cherishing the fantasy of a world relying 100% on renewables, is that the ‘plummeting prices’ (which, by the way, haven’t changed much over the last three years, reaching a plateau) do not factor in so-called system and balancing costs associated with the need to smooth the intermittency of renewables.

Put simply, the fact the sun doesn’t shine at night and wind doesn’t blow all the time means wind and solar generation needs to be backed up.

According to a study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, integration of intermittent renewables into the grid is estimated in some cases to be as expensive as power generation itself.

Delivering the highest possible renewable content means customers’ bills will have to cover: renewable generation costs, energy storage solutions, major grid updates and interconnections investment, as well as gas or coal peaking power plants or ‘peakers’, which work only from time to time when needed to back up wind and solar.

The expected cost for kWh for peakers, according to investment bank Lazard is about twice that of conventional power plants due to much lower capacity factors.

Despite exceptionally low fossil fuel prices, peaking natural gas generation had an eye-watering cost of $156-210 per MWh in 2017 while electricity storage, replacing ‘peakers’, would imply an extra cost of $186-413 per MWh.

Burning fossil fuels is cheaper but comes with a great deal of environmental concern and extensive use of coal would make net-zero emissions targets all but unattainable.

So, contrary to some claims, nuclear does not compete with renewables. Moreover, a recent study by the MIT Energy Initiative showed, most convincingly, that renewables and load following advanced nuclear are complementary.

Nuclear competes with coal. Phasing out coal is crucial to fighting climate change. Putting off decisions to build new nuclear capacities while increasing the share of intermittent renewables makes coal indispensable and extends its life.

Scientists at the Brattle group, a consultancy, argue that “since CO2 emissions persist for many years in the atmosphere, near-term emission reductions are more helpful for climate protection than later ones”.

The longer we hesitate with new nuclear build the more difficult it becomes to save the Earth.

Nuclear power accounta for about one-tenth of global electricity production, but as much as one-third of generation from low-carbon sources. 1GWe of installed nuclear capacity prevents emissions of 4-7 million metric tons of CO2 emissions per year, depending on the region.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that in order to limit the average global temperature increase to 2°C and still meet global power demand, we need to connect to the grid at least 20GW of new nuclear energy each year.

The World Nuclear Association (WNA) sets the target even higher with the total of 1,000 GWe by 2050, or about 10 GWe per year before 2020; 25 GWe per year from 2021 to 2025; and on average 33 GWe from 2026 to 2050.

Regulatory and political challenges in the West have made life for nuclear businesses in the US and in Europe's nuclear sector very difficult, driving many of them to the edge of insolvency; but in the rest of the world nuclear energy is thriving.

Nuclear vendors and utilities post healthy profits and invest heavily in next-gen nuclear innovation and expansion. The BRICS countries are leading the way, taking over the initiative in the global climate agenda. From their perspective, it’s the opposite of decline.

Dr Kirill Komarov is first deputy CEO of Russian state nuclear energy operator Rosatom and chairman of the World Nuclear Association.

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