Future Prospects of Renewable Energy

The world which was dependent on fossil fuels for a long time has shifted focus on renewable of late, mainly due to the impact of climate change.  It has been estimated that renewable energy would increase by about 60% in the power, heat and transport sectors over 2025-2030.  The share in energy consumption boosts to nearly 20% by 2030 against 13% in 2023. The policy support in about 130 countries is likely to promote three quarters of the rise due to declining costs and use of electricity for road transport and heat pumps.

Liquid, gaseous and solid bioenergy and hydrogen/e-fuels account for 15% of the forecast growth in renewable energy demand.  They are pronounced in areas not amenable to electrification – aviation and marine sectors.  They further offer energy access in rural areas and industries with readily available biomass (sugar and ethanol, pulp and paper). Solar thermal and geothermal is credited with 10% growth.

CURRENT STOCK OF RENEWABLE ENERGY:

Globally, one-third of energy is shared by renewable. Primary energy (one-seventh of the world) consumption from renewables (hydropower, solar, wind, geothermal, wave, tidal and modern biofuels) seem adding an appreciable percentage while traditional biomass has been an important source in lower-income groups.  Though hydropower is by far the largest modern renewable source (contribution varies significantly across the world), wind and solar are indeed growing rapidly. 

The renewable energy share is forecast to rise from 30% to 46% in 2030 – solar and wind making up the most.  It is also used to produce hydrogen for use in materials, chemicals and for power production accounting for three-quarters of renewable hydrogen demand in 2030. Renewable share in heat demand climbs to nearly 20% – solid and gaseous bioenergy, solar thermal and geothermal energy.  Transport sector the share of renewable is 6% as liquid biofuel consumption expands.

• Asia led the world (2022) generating 3749 TWh (9.3% increase through solar and hydro with decline in wind and bioenergy
• Second placed North America with 1493 TWh (up by 8.6%) despite drop in bioenergy
• Europe generated 1462 TWh
• South America generated 940 TWh  through hydropower recovery and a solar energy

South America leads with 75% of its electricity through renewable predominantly hydropower followed by Europe with 40.5% characterized by varied mix (35.7% wind; 33.3% hydropower; 16.1% solar; 14% bioenergy and 0.8% geothermal.  Central America and Caribbean along with Oceania account for 38% of renewable.

It is estimated that renewable would account for 50% by the close of this decade which indicates rapid progress of their contribution – projected to add 5.5 terawatts.  This growth is almost triple the growth witnessed from 2017 to 2023.  China accounting for 60% of this global capacity leads the progress followed by India with fastest renewable energy growth rate among major economies.  Solar photovoltaic alone accounts for 80% of global renewable capacity expansion by 2030.  This includes both large-scale solar power plants and rooftop solar as well.  Wind energy is not far behind with its growth rate doubling between 2024 and 2030.  That brings us to the fact that both solar and wind are currently most cost-effective options and new electricity generation in every country.  However, achieving this target could be possible if governments act speedily as renewables are moving faster than set targets.  The target of 5,500 gigawatts is almost equal to the current power capacity of China, the European Union, India and United States combined.

Even the projections to switch to a fully sustainable global energy landscape by 2050 banks on support of policymakers, businesses and other organizations.  The roadmap for countries which are responsible for greater global emissions is to switch to clean renewables no later than 2050 with at least 80% renewables by 2030.  About 24 regions of the planet need to work together on grid stability and energy storage solutions to match the energy demand between 2050 and 2052.

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES:

Although the renewable projections world over looks attractive, the question that needs to be addressed is whether it is feasible.  Let us evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of renewables to ensure we are in the right direction. 

Land:

How much area is required for a 1MW solar plant? On average, a 1kW solar system requires a shade-free area of 6 square meters. Accordingly, to set up solar panels of 1 megawatt, you need over 6000 square meters of land (roughly 1.5 acres).  That means the area occupied by solar based on the current capacity world over is indeed huge.

India’s current floating solar capacity is less than 100M. The technical potential for floating solar capacity in inland bodies of water in India is 206.7 GWp,  Industry projections suggest that India’s floating solar capacity could exceed 5GW by 2025. The global floating solar capacity exceeded 5 GW, with China emerging as the leader in the Asia-Pacific region.   Asia represented over 90 per cent of the world’s demand for floating solar systems (2023).

A single turbine of 1 MW wind farm (less than 1 MW machines are not available in the Indian market) will typically require 2 acres of land to set up, including the land needed for a transformer and transmission cabling.  Club this with solar for land requirement.

Grid stabilization:

• Intermittent supply in renewable energy is not consistent or predictable.
• Overload disturbances – renewables may not produce any energy at some times – they overproduce on very sunny or windy days.
• In some situations, peak renewable energy output aligns with energy needs.
• Unreliable energy sources don’t fare well with conventional grid – Storage technologies
• Frequency and voltage anomalies
• Overloading existing transmission lines –Smart grids
• Mismatch of demand and supply – Dynamic load flow management

Environment:

Despite significant variation between wind and solar – wind turbines capturing kinetic energy of the wind while solar panels convert sunlight into electricity, each has a different impact on the environment.

• Wind turbines and solar panels require significant resource consumption posing environmental challenges

Source: MEI’s Barry Wills

Source: Jeff Sykes

• End-of-life for wind turbines and solar panels are waste management problems inviting effective recycling strategies

Fragments of wind turbine blades as land fill

Solar panel production involves use of toxic chemicals – hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid and sodium hydroxide which deserve careful handling and disposal to prevent contamination.  Though the panels can be recycled to recover valuable materials, the process however is expensive and complex

• Both can impact wildlife

Wind farms in migratory routes pose collision risk for birds and bats

Noise disturbs both terrestrial and marine life

Solar farms disrupts habitats – land use changes and habitat fragmentation/loss

in deserts, impact on desert tortoise and ground nesting birds.  Floating solar interferes with aquatic ecology.

FUTURE PROSPECTS:

The pace at which renewable is progressing, it may account for 100% electricity sooner or later.  When fossil fuels were deployed, no one bothered about environmental implications at that point of time.  It is after a few decades that the environmental implications especially in terms of rising temperature were recognized and serious efforts are being advocated to combat challenges of climate change – rising carbon dioxide levels, particularly.

Renewable was identified as the most appropriate option in this regard and more and more countries are predominantly, leaning towards either solar or wind.  Since this option is new and is found pretty attractive, vast expansion is proposed not only in the next five years but beyond and until 2050.

The environmental implications of this expansive program world over however, is still not clear at this juncture,.  It is further still not clear as to what kind of changes that may arise out of these ambitious programs.  If one looks at the details above, the first aspect that one needs to look at is about the land requirement and its degradation when land scarcity for agriculture is already grave.  Secondly, the rare earth elements that go into both solar and wind – they are indeed limited and exhausting them at this rate may land us in a situation where one has to think on alternate once again.  The third aspect one needs to be careful is about the waste that is already generated and likely to add up in the coming decades.  We seem to pay no attention on these accumulating challenges and may end up in a similar situation to that of the fossil fuels.

CONCLUSION:

We seem complacent at the role that renewable has played so far but are ignorant of the hidden challenges that it may throw up in the next few decades.  We took it for granted when we started with fossil fuels (non-renewable) and sitting pretty confident that renewable would solve the problem once for all.   It is time we divert our attention to the hidden challenges that the renewable is warning and gear up to them to prolong their contribution.