More wonk stuff from Ash

Below is a link to a fascinating article on stagnant US electricity demand and the supreme difficulty in making long-term investment decisions in the face of great uncertainty.  It cites the Tennessee Valley Authority which plans generator construction twenty years ahead.

"TVA wanted a plan for 20 years; the plan lasted three."

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/2/27/17052488/electricity-demand-utilities

The cost of new renewable energy kit keeps falling, discounting existing investments while making current investment subject to early irrelevance as it looks set to be superseded very quickly.

This is Swanson's Law about solar.  The same imperatives apply to wind turbines, and on-shore wind continues to be cheaper than solar. I remind all this chart is log scale, not linear.
Consider GE's newest wind turbine of 12Mw that stands 260m tall with 107m blades.  It harvests wind from higher in the atmosphere where speeds are faster and more time-consistent.  It is a monster and makes a mockery of smaller turbines in efficiency terms.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...-largest-wind-turbine-in-france-idUSKCN1GD5GW

Investing in electricity generation is really tough when technology is advancing so quickly with no end in sight.  We have recently discussed the high interest rate Goldman Sachs is demanding to refinance IFN. It looks as though this risk premium is probably justified.

Ash