GenCost 2024–25 draft released for consultation

Public consultation has opened 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 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 of the draft report highlight the following:

• Large-scale solar photovoltaics (PV) capital costs have fallen 8% two years in a row.
• Battery costs recorded the largest annual reduction, with capital costs falling 20%.
• Onshore wind generation costs increased 2% (but at a reduced rate from an 8% increase last year), reflecting ongoing but moderate increases in equipment and installation costs.
• Gas turbine costings increased 11%, reflecting the additional cost of being hydrogen ready which is now an industry standard.
• Modelling nuclear generation’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,” he 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 nuclear facility’s longer operational life (60 years), estimated capacity factor range for Australia (the average time it operates at full capacity) and estimated development time (the planning, regulatory, community and construction activities anticipated to introduce a new domestic electricity source). CSIRO’s Chief Energy Economist and GenCost’s lead author, 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,” he said. “The lack of an economic advantage is due to the substantial nuclear reinvestment costs required to achieve long operational life.”

The draft report found that GenCost’s previous analysis of nuclear’s capacity factor range of 53–89% was 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 six years to 8.2 years over the last five years, placing a development timeframe at between 12 and 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. Feedback should be sent to AEMO. The final GenCost 2024-25 report will be released in the second quarter of 2025.

The GenCost 2024–25 consultation draft can be downloaded here.

Image credit: iStock.com/Galeanu Mihai