WORLDWIDE: As technology costs come down, combining wind, solar and energy storage looks like the way to integrate renewables at least cost.

Following publication of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s report in October with its stark findings that we have just 12 years in which to limit global warming to 1.5ºC, Roger Price, chief executive of Australian developer Windlab, chooses his words carefully.

Rural skyscrapers Four wind turbines dominate snowy corn fields, Lee County, Illinois, in January
“The energy sector is in transition. Some are prepared to embrace that transition with optimism. But, in the end, the economics are becoming clearer,” Price says.

“In most OECD countries legacy generation plants — usually coal — were built by the state. These plants cannot run economically past their operational lifetime.

“Eventually they have to be replaced with the cheapest, and also the cleanest, form of generation. Wind and solar will replace the lion’s share of legacy generation over the next 20 years or so.

Read more: Wind Power Monthly