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https://cleantechnica.com/2020/01/18/fossil-vehicle-sales-in-global-freefall-down-4-7-in-2019-electric-vehicle-sales-continue-to-grow/

Fossil Vehicle Sales In Global Freefall — Down 4.7% In 2019! Electric Vehicle Sales Continue To Grow — CleanTechnica Report

January 18th, 2020 by Dr. Maximilian Holland 

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The world’s fossil fuel vehicle sales have continued to freefall in 2019, dropping by around 4.35 million, or some 4.7%, compared to 2018, accelerating a now inexorable trend. Global electric vehicle sales meanwhile have continued to rise, with 2019 EV market share reaching 4.7% in China and 3.8% in Europe. (Note that “electric vehicles” in this report concerns both fully electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids.)

Peugeot e-208. Image courtesy Peugeot

LMC automotive has released its 2019 global auto sales figures this past week, with an overall drop from 2018’s 94.416 million to 90.266 million. The gross figures don’t detail the fossil fuel vehicle vs. EV sales split, but regional EV data (or firm estimates) are now in place for the 3 largest markets (China, Europe, and the US), which together make up almost two-thirds of global auto sales.

Let’s grasp the overall picture via the combined total of combustion vehicle sales and EV sales in these 3 major markets:

China

The toughest market for combustion vehicles in 2019 was China, with a drop in sales of 8.4% compared to 2018. We looked in some detail at the China figures last week. Here’s an overview:

Apart from the noticeable combustion vehicle drop, we can see that EV sales were also trimmed back slightly in 2019 due to major changes to the NEV incentive policy from July. These changes have now settled, and the EV market will be back to growth in 2020. Importantly, despite this trimming, EV market share actually increased from 4.5% to 4.7% due to the dramatic decline in combustion vehicle sales.

With further fossil fuel vehicle drops forecast for 2020, EV market share in China will almost certainly cross the 5% mark this year, perhaps crossing 6% if the local EV market quickly gets back to growth.

Europe

In Europe (EU + EFTA), there’s a different mix of market dynamics at play. 2019 fossil fuel vehicle sales actually increased by a tiny 0.059% (less than one tenth of one percent), largely from a Q4 pull forward (fire sale?) due to the tough CO2 emissions regulations that have now come into effect (2020 onwards). EV sales on the other hand grew strongly, from 407,000 to an estimated 579,000 (provisional figures from EV Volumes, and via José Pontes’ country reports). Here’s the overview:

The ~172,000 increase in EV sales marks a strong 43% growth over 2018, even before the new regulations push things along further in 2020. In market share terms, EVs grew from 2.67% to 3.8%. I’m expecting close to 1 million EV sales in Europe this year, and a steep decline in fossil vehicle sales (to around 14.5 million or less), giving EVs over 6% market share. (Editor’s note: We have a bit of a China vs. Europe EV market share competition now! That’s fun.)

US Market

The 2019 US picture is more mixed. Fossil vehicle sales dropped by 180,000 units, a fall of 1.1%. EV sales meanwhile dropped by 32,000, a fall of 8.9% (data estimates from our friends over at InsideEVs). Here’s the graph:

The US EV market share thus fell from 2.1% to 1.9%. A major cause of lower EV sales in the US is weak US availability of compelling affordable EV offerings (e.g., the Hyundai Kona EV and Kia e-Niro), and very few new EV models in more affordable segments in 2019. In contrast, Europe gets many more electric choices and deliveries of hot models are reportedly prioritized in Europe. Also complicating things is that Tesla had not started shipping the Model 3 abroad in 2018, maximizing US deliveries before a big drop in the US tax credit for Tesla buyers. The Model 3’s arrival in Europe (and China) in 2019 gave those markets a boost that the US market benefited from earlier, in 2018.

The “new” Nissan LEAF 62 kWh is mostly just a larger battery pack (still with no active cooling) and is overshadowed in value by the Tesla Model 3. The updated Hyundai Ioniq EV (38 kWh), on sale for months already in other regions, has still not made it to US shores. Few other affordable new models were available. The MG ZS EV, for example, which went straight into the #5 position in the Netherlands in December, isn’t available in the US, neither is the Renault Zoe, one of Europe’s most popular EVs. More affordable Volkswagen Group triplets also aren’t available in the US. The untimely retirement of the much-loved Chevy Volt, long one of the most popular EVs in the US, also effectively trimmed the market by around 13,400 vehicles.

In short, outside of Tesla, there’s a lack of diverse up-to-date EV offerings in the US, and a woeful lack of available supply for those that are most compelling. Finally, there’s also the waiting-for-Model-Y Osborne effect, which put a damper on 2019 US EV sales (and not just EVs). The Model Y will result in US sales volumes returning to strong growth in 2020.

Tesla Model Y. Image courtesy Tesla

Rest of the World

We’ll have to wait a while longer to learn the fully granular 2019 EV results from other markets, but we know that Canada, Japan, and South Korea will have totaled a little over 130,000 EV sales, and Malaysia, Thailand, Australia, and New Zealand around 25,000 more. Close to 2.3 million global EV sales will be the 2019 final tally, up from around 2.1 million in 2018. Given the 4.15 million drop in global auto sales, we can conclude that fossil fuel vehicle sales were down by around 4.35 million in 2019 compared to 2018.

Overall, the 2019 global EV market share was 2.5%, an increase from the 2.2% market share of 2018. The main growth driver was Europe, whilst we saw China — though still leading in volume and EV market share — pause to refresh its incentives landscape.

All auto market analysts continue to predict falling global auto volumes in 2020, especially in China, Europe, and the US. Conversely, EV sales will continue to grow (Tesla alone may grow by around 300,000 units this year), and we can expect global EV market share to climb to at least 3% in 2020, secured mostly by European regulations pushing back on pollution and emissions. We could potentially see up to ~3.5% global market share in 2020, depending on how quickly China and the US get back to volume growth. Much depends on just how precipitously fossil fuel vehicle sales continue to fall. Either way, it’s a certainty that fossil fuel vehicles will continue to move towards their end game and will fall again in 2020.
 

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Tags: auto industry, auto sales, China, China EV Market Share, China EV sales, Death of the combustion engine, End of oil, Europe, Europe EV sales, European EV Market, ev revolution, EV sales, fossil fuel vehicle sales, Osborne effect, Tesla, Tesla Model 3, Tesla Model Y, US, US EV sales

About the Author

Dr. Maximilian Holland Max is an anthropologist, social theorist and international political economist, trying to ask questions and encourage critical thinking about social and environmental justice, sustainability and the human condition. He has lived and worked in Europe and Asia, and is currently based in Barcelona. Follow Max on twitter @Dr_Maximilian and at MaximilianHolland.com, or contact him via LinkedIn.

 

https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/navajo-generating-station-coal-plant-closes-renewables?utm_medium=email&utm_source=GridEdge&utm_campaign=GTMGridEdge

The Navajo Generating Station Coal Plant Officially Powers Down. 

Will Renewables Replace It?

One of the nation’s largest coal plants permanently powered down this week after the owners determined it would be uneconomical to continue operating the facility as natural gas and renewable energy prices continue to drop.

The Navajo Generating Station (NGS) officially shut off at 12:09 p.m. on November 18 when long-time employee Fred Larson opened the Unit 2 breakers, according to the plant operator, Arizona utility Salt River Project (SRP).  The plant had been operating since the mid-1970s on land leased from the Navajo Nation, located east of Page, Arizona.

The closure raises questions about the future of SRP’s energy mix and the extent to which renewables will meet the utility’s energy needs. It also presents a new set of challenges and opportunities for the Navajo Nation, which hosted the coal plant for more than 40 years and relied on it for revenue. When the decision to close NGS was made two years ago, over 500 employees were working at the plant — more than 90 percent of whom are Navajo.

The head of SRP framed the closure as a difficult but necessary decision based on “shifting economics” within the energy industry.

“NGS will always be remembered as a coal-fired workhorse whose employees made it one of the safest and most reliable power plants in the nation,” said SRP CEO and General Manager Mike Hummel.

In 2017, the owners of NGS decided to shutter the 2,250-megawatt coal plant after its lease with the Navajo Nation was scheduled to expire in late December.

SALT RIVER PROJECT – SRP owns 42.9 percent of NGS, with another 24.3 percent owned by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. Other partial owners include Arizona Public Service, NV Energy and Tucson Electric Power.

Over the next three years, contractors will carry out demolition and reclamation duties at the NGS site as they have at many other coal plant sites across the country. The U.S. Energy Information Administration found that between 2010 and the first quarter of 2019, U.S. power companies announced the retirement of more than 546 coal-fired power units, totaling roughly 102 gigawatts of generating capacity. An additional 17 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity is expected to retire by 2025.

Natural gas and a massive solar-charged battery

According to an SRP spokesperson, the public power entity is primarily replacing its share of NGS’ generating capacity with natural gas from the Mesquite and Gila River power plants as well as some additional new solar resources.

Last week, ahead of the Navajo coal plant retirement, SRP announced the purchase of two new solar and battery storage plants, making it one of the largest investors in energy storage in the country.

The Sonoran Energy Center will comprise a 250-megawatt solar array coupled with a 1-gigawatt-hour energy storage system located in Arizona’s Little Rainbow Valley. The Storey Energy Center will be an approximately 88-megawatt solar and energy storage system, located south of Coolidge.

“These integrated solar and storage plants will allow SRP to meet its summer peak demand, reduce carbon emissions, and provide clean energy to our customers while optimizing energy output using state-of-the-art battery technology,” Hummel said in a statement.

The projects were chosen as part of a recent “all-source” solicitation for 600 megawatts of capacity that will help SRP hit its goal of adding 1,000 megawatts of new solar to its system by 2025 and meet customer needs going forward.

Both plants are scheduled to come online by June 2023 and will be owned and operated by subsidiaries of NextEra Energy Resources.

SRP, which is governed by its own elected board, has been criticized for not moving as fast as other Arizona utilities in adopting renewable energy resources. Recent announcements mark a shift in focus. Executives announced last year that SRP would add more solar and batteries to its grid in an effort to save money and reduce reliance on natural gas. At the time it had only 200 megawatts of solar power.

SRP also has a goal to reduce the amount of carbon emissions it generates per megawatt-hour by more than 60 percent by 2035 and by 90 percent in 2050.

Still, natural gas will make up the bulk of the missing capacity from the retired Navajo Generating Station. SRP purchased one block of the Gila River Power Station in 2016 and two 550-megawatt natural-gas generating units at Gila Station in 2017. The Mesquite plant purchase was made in 2012.

The good news for renewables is that SRP currently has a significant amount of baseload capacity available to help the grid remain reliable, which means that it can add a lot more solar before it starts to face some of the long-term problems utilities face when adopting a large amount of renewables, according Colin Smith, a senior analyst at Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables.

“SRP absolutely will be able to add more solar to the grid without disrupting their overall generation load,” he said.

“The biggest question, I think, is about lost jobs,” Smith added. “Solar, realistically, is only going to provide some short-term construction jobs as opposed to long-term jobs for engineers and people working at the coal plant.”

The human cost

The jobs impact from the NGS closure will disproportionately affect members of the Navajo Nation, who made up the vast majority of the coal plant’s workforce.

Clean energy entrepreneur Brett Isaac, who is Navajo and whose family still lives in the territory, is hopeful that renewable energy development will be able to create significant opportunities and lasting impact for his community.

A founder of Navajo Power, a Public Benefit Corporation developing clean energy projects on tribal lands, Isaac said he and his team are taking an inclusive approach to energy planning and designing their projects to generate long-term revenue streams for the tribe.

The two-year-old company is currently focused on deploying solar projects larger than 100 megawatts but over time plans to build a robust distributed energy business, which is more labor-intensive. The Navajo Power team believes it could develop up to 10 gigawatts of renewable energy on the Navajo Nation in Arizona and New Mexico, which would be a boon for the community and support a shift to new technology jobs.

Navajo Power has already secured land for its projects and is working to complete environmental reviews and establish offtake agreements for the large solar projects it plans to build. But the process of building support has been a challenge.

Convincing utilities, corporations and states that used to buy power from the Navajo Nation to sign new offtake agreements for projects located on tribal lands has been tough in the wake of the NGS closure. Engendering confidence within the Navajo Nation has been difficult as well.

Dealings with the “energy [industry have] been traumatic [for] indigenous communities,” said Isaac. “We don’t want to replicate things that have happened in the past [so] they lose their faith in the industry and…[become] resistant to the transition.”

He noted that the NGS coal plant closure has had a “human cost.” It took more than a year for NGS owners to finalize negotiations around closing the plant, putting plant workers and their families in a prolonged state of limbo.

In addition to employment issues, operating budgets for the Navajo Nation and the Hopi Tribe have relied on royalties from the Generating Station and from coal mines on their lands.

The Kayenta Coal Mine, which rolled its last trainload of coal to NGS in late August, used to purchase $9.9 million worth of electricity each year from the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority. The same month, the Peabody-owned mine laid off the last 265 of its workers, many of them members of the Hopi and Navajo tribes.

The transition

SRP and other NGS owners took several steps to limit the impact on tribal communities, according to SRP spokesperson Scott Harelson.

On the job front, SRP offered all 433 regular employees the opportunity to “redeploy” at other SRP facilities; nearly 300 accepted. SRP and other stakeholders in Arizona are also supporting a Re-Employment Center that will offer career training, certification programs and other job-seeker assistance.

In addition, the owners signed a 35-year extension lease with the Navajo Nation for plant retirement activities after 2019 and long-term monitoring. Arrangements were also made to allow for the ongoing operation of the transmission system on the Navajo Nation.

“Under the extension lease, the NGS owners will make lease payments totaling approximately $110 million to the Navajo Nation,” according to SRP.

The Navajo Nation will also take ownership of the remaining NGS assets, including a warehouse, lake pump system and railroad. The closure agreement also gave the tribe rights to transmission capacity at NGS. SRP said a federal government pledge to provide 500 megawatts of transmission capacity from the NGS system is valued at more than $80 million.

But according to Isaac, the Navajo Nation is still recovering decades’ worth of decisions that limited economic development and revenue generation in the region. Unemployment rates remain high, and roughly 15,000 homes on the Navajo Nation still don’t have power.

“And yet they have big 500-kilovolt power lines running over their homes,” he said.

A community-backed move to renewables

Attitudes around energy are shifting on the Navajo Nation. Communities that once opposed renewable energy development, viewing it as a threat to their coal jobs, now understand that alternative energy resources present new opportunities in a shifting energy landscape.

SRP is already working with the Navajo Nation to develop renewable energy on Navajo land and has partnered with the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority on the Kayenta I and Kayenta II solar power plants — the first large-scale solar projects in the territory — totaling approximately 60 megawatts of capacity.

Meanwhile, Navajo grassroots groups are tracking progress on the coal plant cleanup effort and continuing to urge Navajo Nation leaders to move away from the polluting resource. Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez appears to be heeding those calls.

Last Friday, the president refused to financially back bonds needed by the tribal energy company Navajo Transitional Energy Co. for three newly acquired coal mines located outside the reservation. Nez said the company was not transparent in its dealings and that the deal would put the tribe in a tricky financial position in the wake of coal plant closures and mining company bankruptcies.

The following day, Nez visited Navajo Power’s clean energy site and pledged to help the company get permits for its projects and find an offtaker for the power they generate.

“The leader appreciated that Navajo Power went through getting the proper consents from the community…and [is] going about it in a way that’s not trying to overstep or create conflict,” said Isaac.

While clean-energy advocates are looking to write a new chapter for Arizona following the NGS shutdown, there are some things they can learn from coal’s legacy, he added.

“Coal miners and plant operators have pride in what they’re doing,” Isaac said. “Solar can learn from that and create champions within the community — only this time, they can own the process while contributing to a cleaner environment.”