Renewable Energy: Technology, Economics and Environment

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Renewable energy : technology, economics, and environment economics (eBook, ) [www.newyorkethnicfood.com]

The E-mail Address es you entered is are not in a valid format. The obstacles to the widespread commercialization of renewable energy technologies are primarily political, not technical, [] and there have been many studies which have identified a range of "non-technical barriers" to renewable energy use. Technologies that do not easily fit into these networks may struggle to enter the market, even if the technology itself is commercially viable.

This applies to distributed generation as most grids are not suited to receive electricity from many small sources.

Large-scale renewables may also encounter problems if they are sited in areas far from existing grids. With such a wide range of non-technical barriers, there is no "silver bullet" solution to drive the transition to renewable energy. So ideally there is a need for several different types of policy instruments to complement each other and overcome different types of barriers.

A policy framework must be created that will level the playing field and redress the imbalance of traditional approaches associated with fossil fuels. The policy landscape must keep pace with broad trends within the energy sector, as well as reflecting specific social, economic and environmental priorities. Public policy has a role to play in renewable energy commercialization because the free market system has some fundamental limitations. As the Stern Review points out:. In a liberalised energy market, investors, operators and consumers should face the full cost of their decisions. But this is not the case in many economies or energy sectors.

Many policies distort the market in favour of existing fossil fuel technologies. The International Solar Energy Society has stated that "historical incentives for the conventional energy resources continue even today to bias markets by burying many of the real societal costs of their use". Fossil-fuel energy systems have different production, transmission, and end-use costs and characteristics than do renewable energy systems, and new promotional policies are needed to ensure that renewable systems develop as quickly and broadly as is socially desirable.

Lester Brown states that the market "does not incorporate the indirect costs of providing goods or services into prices, it does not value nature's services adequately, and it does not respect the sustainable-yield thresholds of natural systems". Tax shifting has been widely discussed and endorsed by economists. It involves lowering income taxes while raising levies on environmentally destructive activities, in order to create a more responsive market. For example, a tax on coal that included the increased health care costs associated with breathing polluted air, the costs of acid rain damage, and the costs of climate disruption would encourage investment in renewable technologies.

Several Western European countries are already shifting taxes in a process known there as environmental tax reform. Asia's two leading economies, Japan and China, are considering carbon taxes. Just as there is a need for tax shifting, there is also a need for subsidy shifting. Subsidies are not an inherently bad thing as many technologies and industries emerged through government subsidy schemes. And the combination of the federal tax deduction and a robust state tax deduction in California helped to create the modern wind power industry.

Lester Brown has argued that "a world facing the prospect of economically disruptive climate change can no longer justify subsidies to expand the burning of coal and oil. Shifting these subsidies to the development of climate-benign energy sources such as wind, solar, biomass, and geothermal power is the key to stabilizing the earth's climate. Some countries are eliminating or reducing climate-disrupting subsidies and Belgium, France, and Japan have phased out all subsidies for coal. Germany is reducing its coal subsidy. In November , an IEA report entitled Deploying Renewables said "subsidies in green energy technologies that were not yet competitive are justified in order to give an incentive to investing into technologies with clear environmental and energy security benefits".

The IEA's report disagreed with claims that renewable energy technologies are only viable through costly subsidies and not able to produce energy reliably to meet demand. A fair and efficient imposition of subsidies for renewable energies and aiming at sustainable development, however, require coordination and regulation at a global level, as subsidies granted in one country can easily disrupt industries and policies of others, thus underlining the relevance of this issue at the World Trade Organization.

For example, the European Union has prescribed an indicative renewable energy target of 12 per cent of the total EU energy mix and 22 per cent of electricity consumption by National targets for individual EU Member States have also been set to meet the overall target. National targets are also an important component of renewable energy strategies in some developing countries.

The targets set by many developing countries are quite modest when compared with those in some industrialized countries. Renewable energy targets in most countries are indicative and nonbinding but they have assisted government actions and regulatory frameworks. The United Nations Environment Program has suggested that making renewable energy targets legally binding could be an important policy tool to achieve higher renewable energy market penetration.

The IEA has identified three actions which will allow renewable energy and other clean energy technologies to "more effectively compete for private sector capital". In response to the global financial crisis in the late s , the world's major governments made "green stimulus" programs one of their main policy instruments for supporting economic recovery. Public policy determines the extent to which renewable energy RE is to be incorporated into a developed or developing country's generation mix. Energy sector regulators implement that policy—thus affecting the pace and pattern of RE investments and connections to the grid.

Energy regulators often have authority to carry out a number of functions that have implications for the financial feasibility of renewable energy projects. Such functions include issuing licenses, setting performance standards, monitoring the performance of regulated firms, determining the price level and structure of tariffs, establishing uniform systems of accounts, arbitrating stakeholder disputes like interconnection cost allocations , performing management audits, developing agency human resources expertise , reporting sector and commission activities to government authorities, and coordinating decisions with other government agencies.

Thus, regulators make a wide range of decisions that affect the financial outcomes associated with RE investments. In addition, the sector regulator is in a position to give advice to the government regarding the full implications of focusing on climate change or energy security.

The energy sector regulator is the natural advocate for efficiency and cost-containment throughout the process of designing and implementing RE policies. Since policies are not self-implementing, energy sector regulators become a key facilitator or blocker of renewable energy investments.

The Energiewende German for energy transition is the transition by Germany to a low carbon , environmentally sound, reliable, and affordable energy supply. Most if not all existing coal-fired generation will need to be retired. However Germany will need to maintain an average GHG emissions abatement rate of 3.

These initiatives go well beyond European Union legislation and the national policies of other European states. The policy objectives have been embraced by the German federal government and has resulted in a huge expansion of renewables, particularly wind power. Energy co-operatives have been created, and efforts were made to decentralize control and profits.

The large energy companies have a disproportionately small share of the renewables market. However, in some cases poor investment designs have caused bankruptcies and low returns , and unrealistic promises have been shown to be far from reality. One factor that has inhibited efficient employment of new renewable energy has been the lack of an accompanying investment in power infrastructure to bring the power to market. Industry has had their rates frozen and so the increased costs of the Energiewende have been passed on to consumers, who have had rising electricity bills. Voluntary markets, also referred to as green power markets, are driven by consumer preference.

Voluntary markets allow a consumer to choose to do more than policy decisions require and reduce the environmental impact of their electricity use.

Renewable energy : technology, economics, and environment

Voluntary green power products must offer a significant benefit and value to buyers to be successful. Benefits may include zero or reduced greenhouse gas emissions, other pollution reductions or other environmental improvements on power stations. The driving factors behind voluntary green electricity within the EU are the liberalized electricity markets and the RES Directive. According to the directive, the EU Member States must ensure that the origin of electricity produced from renewables can be guaranteed and therefore a "guarantee of origin" must be issued article Environmental organisations are using the voluntary market to create new renewables and improving sustainability of the existing power production.

In the US the main tool to track and stimulate voluntary actions is Green-e program managed by Center for Resource Solutions. A number of events in pushed renewable energy up the political agenda, including the US mid-term elections in November, which confirmed clean energy as a mainstream issue. Also in , the Stern Review [14] made a strong economic case for investing in low carbon technologies now, and argued that economic growth need not be incompatible with cutting energy consumption.

Chinese companies were the second largest recipient of venture capital in after the United States.

North America

In the same year, India was the largest net buyer of companies abroad, mainly in the more established European markets. New government spending, regulation, and policies helped the industry weather the economic crisis better than many other sectors. This policy-stimulus combination represents the largest federal commitment in U. Based on these new rules, many more utilities strengthened their clean-energy programs.

In his 24 January , State of the Union address, President Barack Obama restated his commitment to renewable energy. Obama said that he "will not walk away from the promise of clean energy. He also mentioned the long-standing Interior Department commitment to permit 10, MW of renewable energy projects on public land in As of , renewable energy plays a major role in the energy mix of many countries globally. Renewables are becoming increasingly economic in both developing and developed countries.

Prices for renewable energy technologies, primarily wind power and solar power, continued to drop, making renewables competitive with conventional energy sources. Without a level playing field, however, high market penetration of renewables is still dependent on robust promotional policies.

Renewable energy commercialization

Fossil fuel subsidies, which are far higher than those for renewable energy, remain in place and quickly need to be phased out. United Nations' Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said that "renewable energy has the ability to lift the poorest nations to new levels of prosperity". Worldwide use of solar power and wind power continued to grow significantly in Solar electricity consumption increased by 58 percent, to 93 terawatt-hours TWh. Use of wind power in increased by But due to lower production costs for both technologies, total installed capacities grew sharply.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said that there are few fundamental technological limits to integrating a portfolio of renewable energy technologies to meet most of the total global energy demand. Jacobson , professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University and director of its Atmosphere and Energy Program says producing all new energy with wind power , solar power , and hydropower by is feasible and existing energy supply arrangements could be replaced by Barriers to implementing the renewable energy plan are seen to be "primarily social and political, not technological or economic".

Jacobson says that energy costs with a wind, solar, water system should be similar to today's energy costs. Similarly, in the United States, the independent National Research Council has noted that "sufficient domestic renewable resources exist to allow renewable electricity to play a significant role in future electricity generation and thus help confront issues related to climate change, energy security, and the escalation of energy costs … Renewable energy is an attractive option because renewable resources available in the United States, taken collectively, can supply significantly greater amounts of electricity than the total current or projected domestic demand.

The most significant barriers to the widespread implementation of large-scale renewable energy and low carbon energy strategies are primarily political and not technological. According to the Post Carbon Pathways report, which reviewed many international studies, the key roadblocks are: Moving towards energy sustainability will require changes not only in the way energy is supplied, but in the way it is used, and reducing the amount of energy required to deliver various goods or services is essential.

Opportunities for improvement on the demand side of the energy equation are as rich and diverse as those on the supply side, and often offer significant economic benefits. A sustainable energy economy requires commitments to both renewables and efficiency. Renewable energy and energy efficiency are said to be the "twin pillars" of sustainable energy policy. The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy has explained that both resources must be developed in order to stabilize and reduce carbon dioxide emissions: Efficiency is essential to slowing the energy demand growth so that rising clean energy supplies can make deep cuts in fossil fuel use.

If energy use grows too fast, renewable energy development will chase a receding target. Likewise, unless clean energy supplies come online rapidly, slowing demand growth will only begin to reduce total emissions; reducing the carbon content of energy sources is also needed. The IEA has stated that renewable energy and energy efficiency policies are complementary tools for the development of a sustainable energy future, and should be developed together instead of being developed in isolation. Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change p. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Renewable energy portal Environment portal. Photovoltaics and List of photovoltaic power stations. Solar power plants in the Mojave Desert and List of solar thermal power stations. Biofuels and Sustainable biofuel. List of photovoltaics companies. Renewable energy portal Sustainable development portal Global warming portal Environment portal Energy portal Business portal. Lists about renewable energy List of energy storage projects List of large wind farms List of notable renewable energy organizations List of renewable energy topics by country.

List of people associated with renewable energy. Renewables in global energy supply: Archived from the original PDF on 5 September IEA urges governments to adopt effective policies based on key design principles to accelerate the exploitation of the large potential for renewable energy 29 September Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change. Clean Energy Trends , Clean Edge , p. Archived from the original PDF on 3 December World Opinion on Energy Security".

Archived from the original on 17 May Archived from the original on 15 March Archived from the original PDF on 4 September