Public consultation opened today on the draft GenCost 2024-25 Report, an annual assessment of Australia’s future electricity generation costs used in infrastructure planning.
GenCost is a technology-agnostic and policy-neutral report published by CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, and the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO).
It focuses on cost estimates for new build electricity generation, storage, and hydrogen technologies, providing business leaders and decision makers with updated capital costs and data comparisons for their planning and financing studies.
The draft report found renewables continue to have the lowest cost range of any new-build electricity generation technology, for the seventh year in a row.
It also found inflationary pressures continue to ease but the impact on each technology’s unique raw material inputs and supply chains remains mixed.
Key points
- Large scale solar photovoltaics (PV) capital costs have fallen 8 per cent two years in a row.
- Battery costs recorded the largest annual reduction with capital costs falling 20 per cent.
- Onshore wind generation costs increased 2 per cent (but at a reduced rate from an 8 per cent increase last year), reflecting ongoing but moderate increases in equipment and installation costs.
- Gas turbine costings increased 11 per cent, reflecting the additional cost of being hydrogen ready which is now an industry standard.
- Modelling nuclear’s long operational life factor across all new-build electricity generation technologies presents no unique cost advantage over other technologies.
CSIRO’s Director of Energy, Dr Dietmar Tourbier, said GenCost provides objective cost benchmarks using the best available and verifiable data.
“GenCost’s annual update delivers data-based forecasts that support informed decision-making across the energy sector,” Dr Tourbier said.
“Collaboration and transparency are central to this process, and the feedback we receive plays a vital role in ensuring our data and projections are relevant and impactful.”
Nuclear updates
Since GenCost provided the first detailed costings for new-build, large-scale nuclear electricity generation in Australia, three considerations have emerged regarding a facility’s:
- Longer operational life (60 years)
- Estimated capacity factor range for Australia (the average time it operates at full capacity)
- Estimated development time (the planning, regulatory, community and construction activities anticipated to introduce a new domestic electricity source).
CSIRO Chief Energy Economist and GenCost lead author, Mr Paul Graham, said today’s draft report found no unique cost advantage in nuclear technology.
“Similar cost savings can be achieved with shorter-lived technologies, including renewables, even when accounting for the need to build them twice,” Mr Graham said.
“The lack of an economic advantage is due to the substantial nuclear re-investment costs required to achieve long operational life.”
The draft report found GenCost’s previous analysis of nuclear’s capacity factor range of 53-89 per cent fair and remains unaltered based on verifiable data and consideration of Australia’s unique electricity generation sector.
It also reported that global median nuclear construction times have increased from 6 years to 8.2 years over the last 5 years, placing a development timeframe of between 12-17 years. Based on this analysis, GenCost maintained the total development lead time for nuclear in Australia will be at least 15 years.
GenCost’s modelling methods and data sources are published online and its authors actively respond to and engage the spectrum of interests across the electricity generation sector. Collaborative partner, AEMO, complements this through provision of industry data, technical review of information and facilitation of consultation.
The draft GenCost 2024-25 report is open for consultation until 11 February 2025.
The final GenCost 2024-25 report will be released in the second quarter of 2025.
