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Renewable energy articles from across Nature Portfolio

Renewable energy is energy that comes from sources that are readily replenishable on short-timescales. Examples of these are solar radiation, wind, and biomass.

Breaking the reaction chain

Wide band gap perovskite solar cells suffer from halide segregation, which hampers their use in tandem solar cells. Now, researchers develop an additive with redox and defect passivating capabilities to suppress halide migration, enabling perovskite–organic tandems with over 25% efficiency.

• Aleksandra B. Djurišić

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A robust and efficient dye-sensitized NiO bio-hybrid photocathode based on a redox polymer and [FeFe]- hydrogenase has been developed to couple with a BiVO 4 photoanode for water splitting without applied bias.

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Floating photovoltaics may reduce the risk of hydro-dominated energy development in Africa

A new study finds that strategically integrating floating solar panels on reservoirs could substitute 20–100% of Africa’s planned hydropower by 2050. For the Zambezi watercourse, this approach generates a more stable electricity supply compared with hydro-dominated development.

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Transparent ultrahigh-molecular-weight polyethylene/MXene films with efficient UV-absorption for thermal management

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Study reveals a reaction at the heart of many renewable energy technologies

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A key chemical reaction — in which the movement of protons between the surface of an electrode and an electrolyte drives an electric current — is a critical step in many energy technologies, including fuel cells and the electrolyzers used to produce hydrogen gas.

For the first time, MIT chemists have mapped out in detail how these proton-coupled electron transfers happen at an electrode surface. Their results could help researchers design more efficient fuel cells, batteries, or other energy technologies.

“Our advance in this paper was studying and understanding the nature of how these electrons and protons couple at a surface site, which is relevant for catalytic reactions that are important in the context of energy conversion devices or catalytic reactions,” says Yogesh Surendranath, a professor of chemistry and chemical engineering at MIT and the senior author of the study.

Among their findings, the researchers were able to trace exactly how changes in the pH of the electrolyte solution surrounding an electrode affect the rate of proton motion and electron flow within the electrode.

MIT graduate student Noah Lewis is the lead author of the paper , which appears today in Nature Chemistry . Ryan Bisbey, a former MIT postdoc; Karl Westendorff, an MIT graduate student; and Alexander Soudackov, a research scientist at Yale University, are also authors of the paper.

Passing protons

Proton-coupled electron transfer occurs when a molecule, often water or an acid, transfers a proton to another molecule or to an electrode surface, which stimulates the proton acceptor to also take up an electron. This kind of reaction has been harnessed for many energy applications.

“These proton-coupled electron transfer reactions are ubiquitous. They are often key steps in catalytic mechanisms, and are particularly important for energy conversion processes such as hydrogen generation or fuel cell catalysis,” Surendranath says.

In a hydrogen-generating electrolyzer, this approach is used to remove protons from water and add electrons to the protons to form hydrogen gas. In a fuel cell, electricity is generated when protons and electrons are removed from hydrogen gas and added to oxygen to form water.

Proton-coupled electron transfer is common in many other types of chemical reactions, for example, carbon dioxide reduction (the conversion of carbon dioxide into chemical fuels by adding electrons and protons). Scientists have learned a great deal about how these reactions occur when the proton acceptors are molecules, because they can precisely control the structure of each molecule and observe how electrons and protons pass between them. However, when proton-coupled electron transfer occurs at the surface of an electrode, the process is much more difficult to study because electrode surfaces are usually very heterogenous, with many different sites that a proton could potentially bind to.

To overcome that obstacle, the MIT team developed a way to design electrode surfaces that gives them much more precise control over the composition of the electrode surface. Their electrodes consist of sheets of graphene with organic, ring-containing compounds attached to the surface. At the end of each of these organic molecules is a negatively charged oxygen ion that can accept protons from the surrounding solution, which causes an electron to flow from the circuit into the graphitic surface.

“We can create an electrode that doesn’t consist of a wide diversity of sites but is a uniform array of a single type of very well-defined sites that can each bind a proton with the same affinity,” Surendranath says. “Since we have these very well-defined sites, what this allowed us to do was really unravel the kinetics of these processes.”

Using this system, the researchers were able to measure the flow of electrical current to the electrodes, which allowed them to calculate the rate of proton transfer to the oxygen ion at the surface at equilibrium — the state when the rates of proton donation to the surface and proton transfer back to solution from the surface are equal. They found that the pH of the surrounding solution has a significant effect on this rate: The highest rates occurred at the extreme ends of the pH scale — pH 0, the most acidic, and pH 14, the most basic.

To explain these results, researchers developed a model based on two possible reactions that can occur at the electrode. In the first, hydronium ions (H 3 O + ), which are in high concentration in strongly acidic solutions, deliver protons to the surface oxygen ions, generating water. In the second, water delivers protons to the surface oxygen ions, generating hydroxide ions (OH - ), which are in high concentration in strongly basic solutions.

However, the rate at pH 0 is about four times faster than the rate at pH 14, in part because hydronium gives up protons at a faster rate than water.

A reaction to reconsider

The researchers also discovered, to their surprise, that the two reactions have equal rates not at neutral pH 7, where hydronium and hydroxide concentrations are equal, but at pH 10, where the concentration of hydroxide ions is 1 million times that of hydronium. The model suggests this is because the forward reaction involving proton donation from hydronium or water contributes more to the overall rate than the backward reaction involving proton removal by water or hydroxide.

Existing models of how these reactions occur at electrode surfaces assume that the forward and backward reactions contribute equally to the overall rate, so the new findings suggest that those models may need to be reconsidered, the researchers say.

“That’s the default assumption, that the forward and reverse reactions contribute equally to the reaction rate,” Surendranath says. “Our finding is really eye-opening because it means that the assumption that people are using to analyze everything from fuel cell catalysis to hydrogen evolution may be something we need to revisit.”

The researchers are now using their experimental setup to study how adding different types of ions to the electrolyte solution surrounding the electrode may speed up or slow down the rate of proton-coupled electron flow.

“With our system, we know that our sites are constant and not affecting each other, so we can read out what the change in the solution is doing to the reaction at the surface,” Lewis says.

The research was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Basic Energy Sciences.

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Renewables bucked the trend in 2020.

Renewable energy use increased 3% in 2020 as demand for all other fuels declined. The primary driver was an almost 7% growth in electricity generation from renewable sources. Long-term contracts, priority access to the grid, and continuous installation of new plants underpinned renewables growth despite lower electricity demand, supply chain challenges, and construction delays in many parts of the world. Accordingly, the share of renewables in global electricity generation jumped to 29% in 2020, up from 27% in 2019. Bioenergy use in industry grew 3%, but was largely offset by a decline in biofuels as lower oil demand also reduced the use of blended biofuels.

Renewables are on track to set new records in 2021

Renewable electricity generation in 2021 is set to expand by more than 8% to reach 8 300 TWh, the fastest year-on-year growth since the 1970s. Solar PV and wind are set to contribute two-thirds of renewables growth. China alone should account for almost half of the global increase in renewable electricity in 2021, followed by the United States, the European Union and India. 

Renewable electricity generation increase by technology, 2019-2020 and 2020-2021

Renewable electricity generation increase by technology, country and region, 2020-2021.

Wind is set for the largest increase in renewable generation, growing by 275 TWh, or almost 17%, which is significantly greater than 2020 levels. Policy deadlines in China and the United States drove developers to complete a record amount of capacity late in the fourth quarter of 2020, leading to notable increases in generation already from the first two months of 2021. Over the course of 2021, China is expected to generate 600 TWh and the United States 400 TWh, together representing more than half of global wind output.

While China will remain the largest PV market, expansion will continue in the United States with ongoing policy support at the federal and state level. Having experienced a significant decline in new solar PV capacity additions in 2020 as a result of Covid-related delays, India’s PV market is expected to recover rapidly in 2021, while increases in generation in Brazil and Viet Nam are driven by strong policy supports for distributed solar PV applications. Globally, solar PV electricity generation is expected to increase by 145 TWh, almost 18%, to approach 1 000 TWh in 2021.

We expect hydropower generation to increase further in 2021 through a combination of economic recovery and new capacity additions from large projects in China. Energy from waste electricity projects in Asia will drive growth of bioenergy, thanks to incentives.

Increases in electricity generation from all renewable sources should push the share of renewables in the electricity generation mix to an all-time high of 30% in 2021. Combined with nuclear, low-carbon sources of generation well and truly exceed output from the world’s coal plants in 2021.

Share of low-carbon sources and coal in world electricity generation, 1971-2021

In 2021, the biofuels market is likely to recover and approach 2019 production levels as transportation activity slowly resumes and biofuel blending rates increase. Biofuels are consumed mostly in road transportation, blended with gasoline and diesel fuels, and thus are less affected by continued depressed activity in the aviation sector. 

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Climate Forward

The shift to renewable energy is speeding up. here’s how..

The head of the world’s leading energy organization called the war in Ukraine an “accelerator” of the transition.

By Somini Sengupta

Wars have unintended consequences.

Russia’s war in Ukraine seems to have sped up the global energy transition from fossil fuels to renewables.

This is a big deal. Most of us take for granted that we will enter a dark room and flick on the lights, that our homes will be warm in winter, that we will look out the window of a car and watch the world go by.

But what powers our lives is undergoing a huge change.

Consider three recent developments.

First, according to the International Energy Agency, an estimated $1.4 trillion poured into “clean energy” projects in 2022, a category that includes solar farms, batteries and electric vehicle charging stations. That’s more than ever before, and more than the money that poured into new oil and gas projects. Fatih Birol, the head of the agency, described the energy crisis spurred by the Russian invasion as “an accelerator for clean energy transitions.”

Second, BloombergNEF, a research firm, described this direction of change in a report published last week . Investments in low-carbon energy “reached parity” with capital aimed at expanding fossil fuels, it said.

And finally, the oil giant BP said this week that it expected the war in Ukraine would push countries to ramp up renewable energy projects for the sake of energy security, and that oil and gas demand could peak sooner than the company had anticipated just a year ago.

Spoiler alert: The shift away from fossil fuels isn’t happening fast enough to stay within relatively safe boundaries of climate change. For that to happen, a handful of big emerging economies in Asia, Africa and Latin America will need more renewable energy projects. Financing those projects is more expensive in the countries of the global south than it would be in Europe and North America.

You’re going to hear a lot more going forward about the energy transition. It’s worth pausing for a minute today and looking at how big these changes are.

Energy security doesn’t mean fossil fuels anymore.

Nearly a year ago, right after the Russian invasion, the oil and gas industry made a full-throated pitch that it was key to energy security and affordability. For a while, there was lots of hand-wringing about whether the world’s climate goals would be sacrificed at the altar of energy security.

But since then, renewable projects have been ramped up, not just on climate grounds, but rather in the name of energy security. Renewables are increasingly affordable, once they’re built, and they offer security as well.

In Europe, wind and solar accounted for 22 percent of electricity generation last year, overtaking for the first time the share of gas (20 percent) and coal (16 percent), according to Ember, a research firm .

“In 2023, Europe is set to witness a huge fall in fossil fuels — of coal power, yes, but especially gas power,” said the Ember report, which published on Tuesday.

Globally, renewable energy installations grew by 25 percent in 2022.

China’s investments exceeded, by a long shot, that of every other country.

Especially in the industrialized world, many people are going electric.

Never mind Tesla’s troubles. The electric car transition is in high gear.

In 2022, nearly 15 percent of all new car sales globally were electric, compared to 3 percent of all new car sales in 2019, according to the I.E.A . China dominates the market. More electric cars were sold in China than anywhere else. China’s biggest electric car and bus maker, BYD, has a higher global market share than Tesla.

At this pace, Birol said in an interview with Times journalists on Friday, by 2030, every second car sold in the biggest car markets — China, the United States and Europe — will be powered by electricity, not fossil fuels.

The heat pump became a hot item, especially in Europe this winter.

That’s a huge shift. For more than a hundred years, we have heated buildings with coal, oil, gas and wood. Globally, heat pump sales grew by 15 percent, according to the I.E.A. In some European countries, sales doubled in the first few months of 2022, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

We’re not moving fast enough, though.

These changes, accelerated by the Russian invasion, are improving the world’s “clean energy transition prospects,” Birol said, though it will not be enough to stay within what scientists consider safe boundaries: limiting average global temperature rise to 1.5 degree Celsius between the mid-19th century and the end of this century.

That will need better financing terms for emerging economies.

I hear this often from diplomats and entrepreneurs trying to build renewable energy projects in countries like India, Brazil and South Africa. It’s still way too expensive to borrow money.

If you want to develop a solar project in Brazil or India, Birol said, you’re likely to pay three times more for financing than if you were to build the same project in Europe.

That has huge climate implications. The energy demands of these big emerging economies are growing fast. If they can’t finance renewables, they’ll turn to gas instead. Or worse, to coal.

“The biggest hurdle in front of us is the cost of capital,” Birol said.

From the Wirecutter

The New York Times product review website suggests 10 free, or nearly free, ways to save money on heat and hot water .

Essential news from The Times

On the industry payroll: The health risks of gas stoves are under close scrutiny. Meet the scientist who gets paid by fossil fuel interests to speak on their behalf .

Alaska mine project blocked: The E.P.A. will ban the disposal of industrial waste in the Bristol Bay watershed, killing plans for a mine that could have threatened a rich salmon fishery .

Climate start-ups shine: Tech workers and investors are flocking to start-ups that aim to combat climate change .

The earth moves: Regulators and scientists say fracking operations are causing a surge in seismic activity in Texas .

China’s slowdown: Oil and gas consumption fell in 2022 for the first time since 1990 as the government kept many cities under lockdown. A rebound is expected this year .

A less green Baghdad: A real estate boom in one of the largest cities in the Arab world is erasing the gardens that have helped to moderate temperature increases .

Unexpected fishing buddies: Bottlenose dolphins and Brazilian fishermen are cooperating. It means more fish for both .

From outside The Times

The Science Friday podcast interviewed Juan Pablo Culasso, a professional birder who is blind, about designing accessible forest trails in his native Colombia .

From Bloomberg: A prominent investment research firm assailed Gautam Adani, the Indian tycoon who made a fortune from coal. Adani has lost billions since .

Yale Climate Connections recommended twelve books with advice for people who want to take action on climate change .

The Albuquerque Journal reported on companies using oil drilling technology to tap New Mexico’s geothermal potential .

The Colorado River can no longer meet the water needs of an arid West. The Los Angeles Times is documenting the crisis in a series of articles, videos and podcasts .

Before you go: How to not be complicit

The Indigenous author and scientist Robin Wall Kimmerer is a messenger for ecological care. In an interview with The New York Times Magazine, she talks about how it’s possible for humans to live well and for nature to flourish, and about ways to push back at the powerful forces of destruction around us. “I can’t topple Monsanto, but I can plant an organic garden ,” she said.

Thanks for being a subscriber. We’ll be back on Friday.

Manuela Andreoni, Claire O’Neill and Douglas Alteen contributed to Climate Forward. Read past editions of the newsletter here .

If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here . Browse all of our subscriber-only newsletters here .

Reach us at [email protected] . We read every message, and reply to many!

Somini Sengupta is The Times’s international climate correspondent. She has also covered the Middle East, West Africa and South Asia and is the author of the book, “The End of Karma: Hope and Fury Among India’s Young.” More about Somini Sengupta

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The Challenge of the Last Few Percent: Quantifying the Costs and Emissions Benefits of a 100% Renewable U.S. Electricity System

Large-scale simulations show u.s. can get close to 100% renewable generation cost-effectively—but final few percent drive nonlinear increase in total system cost.

Only two decades ago, some scientists were skeptical we could integrate more than about 20% renewable energy generation on the U.S. power grid. But we hit that milestone in 2020 —so, these days, experts’ sights are set on finding pathways toward a fully renewable national power system. And according to new research published in Joule , the nation could get a long way toward 100% cost-effectively; it is only the final few percent of renewable generation that cause a nonlinear spike in costs to build and operate the power system.

In “Quantifying the Challenge of Reaching a 100% Renewable Energy Power System for the United States,” analysts from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) evaluate possible pathways and quantify the system costs of transitioning to a 100% renewable power grid for the contiguous United States. The research was funded by EERE’s Strategic Analysis Team.

"Our goal was to robustly quantify the cost of a transition to a high-renewable power system in a way that provides electric-sector decision-makers with the information they need to assess the cost and value of pursuing such systems," said Wesley Cole, NREL senior energy analyst and lead author of the paper.

Expanding on previous work to simulate the evolution of the U.S. power system at unprecedented scale, the authors quantify how various assumptions about how the power system might evolve can impact future system costs. They show how costs can increase nonlinearly for the last few percent toward 100%, which could drive interest in non-electric-sector investments that accomplish similar decarbonization objectives with a lower total tab.

"Our results highlight that getting all the way to 100% renewables is really challenging in terms of costs, but because the challenge is nonlinear, getting close to 100% is much easier," Cole said. "We also show how innovations such as lower technology costs, or alternate definitions for 100% clean energy such as including nuclear or carbon capture, can lower the cost of reaching the target."

Advanced Methods Expand Our Understanding of High-Renewable Grids

This work builds on another Joule article released last month  exploring the key unresolved technical and economic challenges in achieving a 100% renewable U.S. electricity system. While some aspects of 100% renewable power grids are well established, there is much we do not know. And because 100% renewable grids do not exist at the scale of the entire United States, we rely on models to evaluate and understand possible future systems.

"With increasing reliance on energy storage technologies and variable wind and solar generation, modeling 100% renewable power systems is incredibly complex," said Paul Denholm, NREL principal energy analyst and coauthor of the paper. "How storage was used yesterday impacts how it can be used today, and while the resolution of our renewable resource data has improved tremendously in recent years, we can’t precisely predict cloudy weather or calm winds."

Integrated Energy Pathways

Integrated energy pathways modernizes our grid to support a high level of renewables, incorporates storage and advanced controls, and expands transportation electrification while maintaining grid reliability and security.

Many prior studies have modeled high-renewable electricity systems for a variety of geographies, but not many examine the entire U.S. grid. And even fewer studies attempt to calculate the cost of transitioning to a 100% renewable U.S. grid—instead, they typically present snapshots of systems in a future year without considering the evolution needed to get there. This work expands on these prior studies with several important advances.

First, the team used detailed production cost modeling with unit commitment and economic dispatch to verify the results of the capacity expansion modeling performed with NREL’s publicly available Regional Energy Deployment System (ReEDS) model . The production cost model is Energy Exemplar’s PLEXOS, a commercial model widely used in the utility industry.

"Over the past couple of years we put a tremendous amount of effort into our modeling tools to give us confidence in their ability to capture the challenges inherent in 100% renewable energy power systems," Cole said. "In addition, we also tried to consider a broad range of future conditions and definitions of the 100% requirement. The combination of these efforts enables us to quantify the cost of a transition to a 100% clean energy system far better than we could in the past."

The analysis represents the power system with higher spatial and technology resolution than previous studies in order to better capture differences in technology types, renewable energy resource profiles, siting and land-use constraints, and transmission challenges. The analysis also uniquely captures the ability to retrofit existing fossil plants to serve needs under 100% renewable scenarios and assesses whether inertial response can be maintained in these futures.

What Drives System Costs? Transition Speed, Capital Costs, and How We Define 100% 

The team simulated a total of 154 different scenarios for achieving up to 100% renewable electricity to determine how the resulting system cost changes under a wide range of future conditions, timeframes, and definitions for 100%—including with systems that allow nonrenewable low-carbon technologies to participate.

"Here we use total cumulative system cost as the primary metric for assessing the challenge of increased renewable deployment for the contiguous U.S. power system," said Trieu Mai, NREL senior energy analyst and coauthor of the paper. "This system cost is the sum of the cost of building and operating the bulk power system assets out to the year 2050, after accounting for the time value of money."

To establish a reference case for comparison, the team modeled the system cost at increasing renewable energy deployment for base conditions, which use midrange projections for factors such as capital costs, fuel prices, and electricity demand growth. Under these conditions, the least-cost buildout grows renewable energy from 20% of generation today to 57% in 2050, with average levelized costs of $30 per megawatt-hour (MWh). Imposing a requirement to achieve 100% renewable generation by 2050 under these same conditions raises these costs by 29%, or less than $10 per MWh. System costs increase nonlinearly for the last few percent approaching 100% 

Associated with the high renewable energy targets are substantial reductions in direct carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions. From the 57% least-cost scenario, the team translated the changes in system cost and CO 2 emissions between scenarios into an average and incremental levelized CO 2 abatement cost. The average value is the abatement cost relative to the 57% scenario, while the incremental value is the abatement cost between adjacent scenarios, e.g., between 80% and 90% renewables. In other words, the average value considers all the changes, while the incremental value considers only the change over the most recent increment.

Total bulk power system cost at a 5% discount rate (left) for the seven base scenarios and levelized average and incremental CO 2 abatement cost (right) for those scenarios. The 2050 renewable (RE) generation level for each scenario is listed on the x-axis. The system costs in the left figure are subdivided into the four cost categories listed in the figure legend (O&M = operations and maintenance). The purple diamond on the y-axis in the left plot indicates the system cost for maintaining the current generation mix, which can be used to compare costs and indicates a system cost comparable to the 90% case.

Notably, incremental abatement costs from 99% to 100% reach $930/ton, driven primarily by the need for firm renewable capacity—resources that can provide energy during periods of lower wind and solar generation, extremely high demand, and unplanned events like transmission line outages. In many scenarios, this firm capacity was supplied by renewable-energy-fueled combustion turbines, which could run on biodiesel, synthetic methane, hydrogen, or some other renewable energy resource to support reliable power system operation. The DOE Energy Earthshots Initiative recently announced by Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm includes the Hydrogen Shot, which seeks to reduce the cost of clean hydrogen by 80% to $1 per kilogram in one decade—an ambitious effort that could help reduce the cost of providing renewable firm capacity.

"When achieving a 100% renewable system, the costs are significantly lower if there is a cost-effective source of firm capacity that can qualify for the 100% definition," Denholm said. "The last few percent cannot cost-effectively be satisfied using only wind, solar, and diurnal storage or load flexibility—so other resources that can bridge this gap become particularly important."

Capital costs are the largest contributor to system costs at 100% renewable energy. Future changes in the capital costs of renewable technologies and storage can thus greatly impact the total system cost of 100% renewable grids. The speed of transition is also an important consideration for both cost and emission impacts. The scenarios with more rapid transitions to 100% renewable power were more costly but had greater cumulative emissions reductions.

"Looking at the low incremental system costs in scenarios that increase renewable generation levels somewhat beyond the reference solutions to 80%–90%, we see considerable low-cost abatement opportunities within the power sector," Mai said. "The trade-off between power-sector emissions reductions and the associated costs of reducing those emissions should be considered in the context of non-power-sector opportunities to reduce emissions, which might have lower abatement costs—especially at the higher renewable generation levels."

"The way the requirement is defined is an important aspect of understanding the costs of the requirement and associated emissions reduction," Cole said. "For instance, if the 100% requirement is defined as a fraction of electricity sales, as it is with current state renewable polices, the cost and emissions of meeting that requirement are similar to those of the scenarios that have requirements of less than 100%."

Additional Research Can Help the Power Sector Understand the Path Forward

While this work relies on state-of-the-art modeling capabilities, additional research is needed to help fill gaps in our understanding of the technical solutions that could be implemented to achieve higher levels of renewable generation, and their impact on system cost. Future work could focus on key considerations such as the scaling up supply chains, social or environmental factors that could impact real-world deployment, the future role of distributed energy resources, or how increased levels of demand flexibility could reduce costs, to name a few.

"While there is much left to explore, given the energy community’s frequent focus on using the electricity sector as the foundation for economy-wide decarbonization, we believe this work extends our collective understanding of what it might take to get to 100%," Cole said.

Learn more about NREL’s energy analysis  and grid modernization research.

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South Africa’s new energy plan needs a mix of nuclear, gas, renewables and coal – expert

Steven Mathetsa , University of the Witwatersrand

Could spending a billion dollars actually bring solar manufacturing back to Australia? It’s worth a shot

Brett Hallam , UNSW Sydney and Fiacre Rougieux , UNSW Sydney

South Africa’s electricity crisis: what political parties say in their election manifestos about solving it

Hartmut Winkler , University of Johannesburg

Six innovative ways to float skyscraper-sized wind turbines

Emma C. Edwards , University of Oxford

Finally, good news for power bills: energy regulator promises small savings for most customers on the ‘default market offer’

Tony Wood , Grattan Institute

76% of Africa’s energy could come from renewable sources by 2040: here’s how

Christiane Zarfl , University of Tübingen and Rebecca Peters , University of Tübingen

Solar power occupies a lot of space – here’s how to make it more ecologically beneficial to the land it sits on

Matthew Sturchio , Colorado State University

April’s eclipse will mean interruptions in solar power generation, which could strain electrical grids

Vahe Peroomian , USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

The National Electricity Market wasn’t made for a renewable energy future. Here’s how to fix it

Vikki McLeod , Queensland University of Technology and Marcus Foth , Queensland University of Technology

Dutton wants a ‘mature debate’ about nuclear power. By the time we’ve had one, new plants will be too late to replace coal

John Quiggin , The University of Queensland

Researchers found 37 mine sites in Australia that could be converted into renewable energy storage. So what are we waiting for?

Timothy Weber , Australian National University and Andrew Blakers , Australian National University

Renewable energy innovation isn’t just good for the climate — it’s also good for the economy

Deborah de Lange , Toronto Metropolitan University

Offshore wind farms: policymakers are more influenced by reports that accentuate negative impacts – new study

Claire Szostek , Plymouth Marine Laboratory

‘Green’ or ‘blue’ hydrogen – what difference does it make? Not much for most Australians

Mitchell Scovell , CSIRO and Andrea Walton , CSIRO

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Renewable Energy

Renewable Energy Shatters Records in the U.S.

The U.S. has never had as much wind, solar and hydropower. But experts say it’s not enough to meet future electricity demand

Benjamin Storrow, E&E News

How the Solar Eclipse Will Impact Electricity Supplies

This April’s total solar eclipse will present a unique challenge to power grid operators because of the decline in solar power generation

Vahe Peroomian, The Conversation US

Renewable Power Set to Surpass Coal Globally by 2025

Renewable energy will surpass coal power by 2025 and, with nuclear energy, will account for nearly half the world’s power generation by 2026, the International Energy Agency forecasts

Jason Plautz, E&E News

Renewable Energy Capacity Could More Than Double by 2030

China is running away with clean energy expansion, with the E.U. and U.S. following far behind

Sara Schonhardt, E&E News

The U.S. Energy Transition Explained in 8 Numbers

Solar and natural gas surged last year in the U.S., while wind stumbled

There’s a Better Way to Mine for Electric Vehicle Batteries

We do not want to trade the harm of emissions from gasoline vehicles for the harm caused by unsustainable mining practices

Beia Spiller, Sangita Kannan

Google Taps Hot Rocks to Cool Climate

The potential of geothermal energy as a carbon-free power source is well known. Now companies such as Google are helping to unlock it

Commercial Airliner Is First to Cross Atlantic with Biofuel Power

Virgin Atlantic flew the first large commercial jet to traverse the Atlantic with 100 percent sustainable aviation fuel

Brian Dabbs, E&E News

U.S. Carbon Emissions Set to Fall Again, a Key Sign of Progress

A projected drop in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions—one of the largest of the past decade—is still not enough to meet the country’s commitments under the Paris climate accord

This Biophysicist 'Sun Queen' Harnessed Solar Power

Hungarian-American biophysicist and inventor Mária Telkes illuminated the field of solar energy. She invented a solar oven, a solar desalination kit and, in the late 1940s, designed one of the first solar-heated houses

Johanna Mayer, Katie Hafner, The Lost Women of Science Initiative

U.S. and China Reach New Climate Agreement

China and the U.S. agreed to new greenhouse gas reduction commitments ahead of upcoming climate talks, but the relationship between the world’s top two emitters remains “challenging”

Zack Colman, E&E News

State Election Results Bring Clean Energy Consequences

The outcomes of state elections this week may mean more natural gas plants in Texas, greater use of climate law funds in Kentucky and the continuation of the status quo in Maine and Mississippi

Jason Plautz, Zach Bright, E&E News

Towards Sustainable Energy: A Systematic Review of Renewable Energy Sources, Technologies, and Public Opinions

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Renewable Energy

Renewable energy sources are growing quickly and will play a vital role in tackling climate change..

Since the Industrial Revolution, the energy mix of most countries across the world has become dominated by fossil fuels. This has major implications for the global climate, as well as for human health. Three-quarters of global greenhouse gas emissions result from the burning of fossil fuels for energy. Fossil fuels are responsible for large amounts of local air pollution – a health problem that leads to at least 5 million premature deaths each year.

To reduce CO 2 emissions and local air pollution, the world needs to rapidly shift towards low-carbon sources of energy – nuclear and renewable technologies.

Renewable energy will play a key role in decarbonizing our energy systems in the coming decades. But how rapidly is our production of renewable energy changing? What technologies look most promising in transforming our energy mix?

In this article we look at the data on renewable energy technologies across the world; what share of energy they account for today, and how quickly this is changing.

Renewable energy generation

How much of our primary energy comes from renewables.

We often hear about the rapid growth of renewable technologies in media reports. But how much of an impact has this growth had on our energy systems?

In this interactive chart, we see the share of primary energy consumption that came from renewable technologies – the combination of hydropower, solar, wind, geothermal, wave, tidal, and modern biofuels. Traditional biomass – which can be an important energy source in lower-income settings is not included.

Note that this data is based on primary energy calculated by the 'substitution method' which attempts to correct for the inefficiencies in fossil fuel production. It does this by converting non-fossil fuel sources to their 'input equivalents': the amount of primary energy that would be required to produce the same amount of energy if it came from fossil fuels.

Approximately one-seventh of the world's primary energy is now sourced from renewable technologies.

Note that this is based on renewable energy's share in the energy mix. Energy consumption represents the sum of electricity, transport, and heating. We look at the electricity mix later in this article.

Breakdown of renewables in the energy mix

In the section above we looked at what share renewable technologies collectively accounted for in the energy mix.

In the charts shown here, we look at the breakdown of renewable technologies by their components – hydropower, solar, wind, and others.

The first chart shows this as a stacked area chart, which allows us to more readily see the breakdown of the renewable mix and the relative contribution of each. The second chart is shown as a line chart, allowing us to see more clearly how each source is changing over time.

Globally we see that hydropower is by far the largest modern renewable source. However, we also see wind and solar power both growing rapidly.

Renewables in the electricity mix

How much of our electricity comes from renewables.

In the sections above we looked at the role of renewables in the total energy mix . This includes not only electricity but also transport and heating. Electricity forms only one component of energy consumption.

Since transport and heating tend to be harder to decarbonize – they are more reliant on oil and gas – renewables tend to have a higher share in the electricity mix versus the total energy mix.

This interactive chart shows the share of electricity that comes from renewable technologies.

Globally, almost one-third of our electricity comes from renewables.

Hydropower generation

Hydroelectric power has been one of our oldest and largest sources of low-carbon energy. Hydroelectric generation at scale dates back more than a century, and is still our largest renewable source – excluding traditional biomass, it still accounts for approximately half of renewable generation.

However, the scale of hydroelectric power generation varies significantly across the world. This interactive chart shows its contribution by country.

Share of primary energy that comes from hydropower

This interactive chart shows the share of primary energy that comes from hydropower.

Share of electricity that comes from hydropower

This interactive chart shows the share of electricity that comes from hydropower.

Wind energy

Wind energy generation.

This interactive chart shows the amount of energy generated from wind each year. This includes both onshore and offshore wind farms.

Wind generation at scale – compared to hydropower, for example – is a relatively modern renewable energy source but is growing quickly in many countries across the world.

Installed wind capacity

The previous section looked at the energy output from wind farms across the world. Energy output is a function of power (installed capacity) multiplied by the time of generation.

Energy generation is therefore a function of how much wind capacity is installed. This interactive chart shows installed wind capacity – including both onshore and offshore – across the world.

Share of primary energy that comes from wind

This interactive chart shows the share of primary energy that comes from wind.

Share of electricity that comes from wind

This interactive chart shows the share of electricity that comes from wind.

Solar energy

Solar energy generation.

This interactive chart shows the amount of energy generated from solar power each year.

Solar generation at scale – compared to hydropower, for example – is a relatively modern renewable energy source but is growing quickly in many countries across the world.

Installed solar capacity

The previous section looked at the energy output from solar across the world. Energy output is a function of power (installed capacity) multiplied by the time of generation.

Energy generation is therefore a function of how much solar capacity is installed. This interactive chart shows installed solar capacity across the world.

Share of primary energy that comes from solar

This interactive chart shows the share of primary energy that comes from solar power.

Share of electricity that comes from solar

This interactive chart shows the share of electricity that comes from solar power.

Biofuel production

Traditional biomass – the burning of charcoal, organic wastes, and crop residues – was an important energy source for a long period of human history. It remains an important source in lower-income settings today. However, high-quality estimates of energy consumption from these sources are difficult to find. The Energy Institute Statistical Review of World Energy – our main data source on energy – only publishes data on commercially traded energy, so traditional biomass is not included.

However, modern biofuels are included in this energy data. Bioethanol and biodiesel – fuel made from crops such as corn, sugarcane, hemp, and cassava – are now a key transport fuel in many countries.

This interactive chart shows modern biofuel production across the world.

Installed geothermal capacity

This interactive chart shows the installed capacity of geothermal energy across the world.

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5 smart renewable energy innovations

Fast and effective renewable energy innovation is critical to meeting climate goals. Image:  REUTERS/Nathan Frandino

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This article was first published on 16 May 2023 and was updated on 21 September 2023.

• Progress on the global energy transition has seen only "marginal growth" in the past three years, according to a World Economic Forum report.
• Fast and effective renewable energy innovation is critical to meeting climate goals.
• Here are five solutions that could help countries meet emissions targets.

The need for renewable energy innovation has never been greater.

In its 2023 report, Fostering Effective Energy Transition , the World Economic Forum says that 95% of countries have improved their total Energy Transition Index score over the past decade , but there has been only "marginal growth" in the past three years.

The Global Risks Report 2023 ranked failure to mitigate climate change as one of the most severe threats in the next two years, while climate- and nature- related risks lead the rankings by severity over the long term.

The World Economic Forum’s Centre for Nature and Climate is a multistakeholder platform that seeks to safeguard our global commons and drive systems transformation. It is accelerating action on climate change towards a net-zero, nature-positive future.

Learn more about our impact:

• Scaling up green technologies: Through a partnership with the US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, John Kerry, and over 65 global businesses, the First Movers Coalition has committed $12 billion in purchase commitments for green technologies to decarbonize the cement and concrete industry.
• 1 trillion trees: Over 90 global companies have committed to conserve, restore and grow more than 8 billion trees in 65 countries through the 1t.org initiative – which aims to achieve 1 trillion trees by 2030.
• Sustainable food production: Our Food Action Alliance is engaging 40 partners who are working on 29 flagship initiatives to provide healthy, nutritious, and safe foods in ways that safeguard our planet. In Vietnam, it supported the upskilling of 2.2 million farmers and aims to provide 20 million farmers with the skills to learn and adapt to new agricultural standards.
• Eliminating plastic pollution: Our Global Plastic Action Partnership is bringing together governments, businesses and civil society to shape a more sustainable world through the eradication of plastic pollution. In Ghana, more than 2,000 waste pickers are making an impact cleaning up beaches, drains and other sites.
• Protecting the ocean: Our 2030 Water Resources Group has facilitated almost $1 billion to finance water-related programmes , growing into a network of more than 1,000 partners and operating in 14 countries/states.
• Circular economy: Our SCALE 360 initiative is reducing the environmental impacts of value chains within the fashion, food, plastics and electronics industries, positively impacting over 100,000 people in 60 circular economy interventions globally.

Want to know more about our centre’s impact or get involved? Contact us .

Greenhouse gas emissions need to be almost halved by 2030 if warming is to be limited to 1.5°C, warns the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its Sixth Assessment Report.

So, it’s encouraging that innovators continue to pioneer fresh approaches that are making the goal of switching the world to renewable energy more achievable. Here are five such energy innovations.

Solar and wind power working together

It’s tempting to think that renewable energy installations need to be either solar or wind powered. But French start-up Unéole has come up with a small-scale, easy to install solution that uses sun and wind power in a single unit .

Designed to be used on the flat roofs of offices and apartment buildings, the platform uses multiple wind turbines under a photovoltaic roof to create a silent solution that produces 40% more energy than a pure solar system and can generate power round the clock.

These turbines never turn

Wind power doesn’t have to mean huge turbines. A US start-up has invented a system that uses three-metre tall wind generators with no external moving parts . Sitting on the edge of roofs, Aeromine uses the natural airflow up the front of the building to generate power.

The system’s aerodynamic fins guide fast-rising air past an internal turbine, which the company claims produces 50% more power than other sustainable options. Combined with rooftop solar and battery storage, it can meet 100% of a building’s needs, the company says.

Have you read?

Solar to dominate us energy mix in 2023. here's what you need to know about the global energy transition this week, can europe’s rush for renewables solve its energy crisis, renewables will be world’s top electricity source within three years, iea data reveals, solar canals.

California is prone to droughts . The first 22 years of this century were the state’s driest period since the year 800 , prompting fears of a megadrought. The problem has been made more acute because the state’s water distribution system uses open canals.

Start-up SolarAquaGrid is trialling a scheme to roof over the canals with solar panels generating power and cutting evaporation. If all 6,400 km of the state’s canals were fitted, it’s forecast to save 283 billion litres of water a year and generate power for 9.4 million homes.

Solar power windows

The windows in the image above are also solar panels . This transparent renewable energy source has been developed by California-based Ubiquitous Technology which says it could revolutionize solar power.

The glass is treated to allow visible light, what we see, to pass through it while absorbing and converting invisible ultraviolet and infrared light into electricity. The company says the solar windows can generate up to 30% of a building's power needs.

Making water from air

With water scarcity likely to be an issue for two-thirds of the world's population by 2025, finding alternative sources is vital. US start-up Source is providing one option. It has created off-grid "hydropanels" that can turn air into water .

Fans inside the panels pull water vapour out of the air, which in turn is turned into liquid water that can be mineralized ready for use as drinking water.

One hydropanel could eliminate the need for 54,000 single-use plastic water bottles over its 15-year lifespan, the company says.

So far, Source has installed panels in 50 countries and has projects under way to provide water in hard-to-reach areas.

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World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

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US surpasses renewable energy goal for public lands

• Medium Text

WHY IT'S IMPORTANT

By the numbers.

• The Interior Department has permitted nearly 29 GW of clean energy on public lands - enough to power more than 12 million homes.
• The Bureau of Land Management, which manages 250 million acres of federal lands, has permitted more than 7 GW of projects since 2021. The agency is processing permits for an additional 32 GW of renewable energy.
• The finalized Renewable Energy Rule will reduce fees for solar and wind projects on federal lands by 80% while streamlining the application process.

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German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock will travel to Israel on Tuesday for discussions on how to prevent an escalation of tensions in the region following Iran's attack over the weekend, she said in Berlin.

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England could produce 13 times more renewable energy, using less than 3% of land – analysis

Onshore wind and solar could provide 226TWh of electricity without impairing food production, says Friends of the Earth

England could produce 13 times more renewable energy than it does now, while using less than 3% of its land, analysis has found.

Onshore wind and solar projects could provide enough electricity to power all the households in England two and a half times over, the research by Exeter University, commissioned by Friends of the Earth (FoE), suggested.

Currently, about 17 terawatt hours of electricity a year comes from homegrown renewables on land. But there is potential for 130TWh to come from solar panels, and 96TWh from onshore wind.

These figures are reached by only taking into account the most suitable sites, excluding national parks, areas of outstanding natural beauty, higher grade agricultural land and heritage sites.

Some commentators have argued that solar farms will reduce the UK’s ability to grow its own food , but the new analysis suggests there is plenty of land that can be used without impairing agricultural production. More land is now taken up by golf courses than solar farms, and developers can be required to enhance biodiversity through simple measures such as maintaining hedgerows and ponds.

Onshore windfarms were in effect banned in 2015 by the then prime minister, David Cameron. Rishi Sunak last year claimed to make moves towards lifting the ban, through small changes to the planning regulations, but campaigners say they were ineffectual and real planning reform is needed. No plans were submitted for new windfarms in England last year , and few new developments are coming forward, despite high gas prices, rising bills and onshore wind being the cheapest form of electricity generation.

The calculations of the land needed exclude rooftop solar panels. Ministers have resisted calls for solar panels to be made mandatory on new-build housing. Kitting out a new-build home with renewables, high-grade insulation and other low-carbon features costs less than £5,000 for a housing developer , but retrofitting it to the same standard costs about £20,000, with the cost borne by the householder. Housing developers are among the largest donors to the Conservative party.

FoE has produced a map that shows potential sites for onshore wind and solar generation . North Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and the East Riding of Yorkshire show particularly good potential. The sites total about 374,900 hectares (926,400 acres), or about 2.9% of the available land in England.

Tony Bosworth, climate campaigner at Friends of the Earth , said: “Unleashing the UK’s immense potential to generate cheap, clean homegrown renewables is essential to bring down our energy bills for good and meeting the UK’s vital international target to reduce carbon emissions by two-thirds by 2030. But the current government’s record on boosting our energy security through renewables is woefully inadequate and has left the UK lagging far behind in the global race to a zero-carbon economy. Meanwhile, Labour is looking increasingly shaky on climate after rolling back its planned investment in green growth.”

He called on all the main parties to commit to lifting restrictions on onshore windfarms in England; for local authorities to identify suitable areas for renewable development; for upgrades to the electricity grid to enable the vast expansion of renewable energy; and for tougher requirements on renewable developers to protect biodiversity.

Local communities can also be helped to benefit from renewable developments, for instance through being offered cheaper power or a share in the development.

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Bosworth said: “We urgently need our political leaders to pull their heads out of the sand and produce a strong, ambitious and fair new climate plan that lifts the barriers to onshore wind and solar power and secures investment in the infrastructure needed to support the switch to renewables. These are win-win policies for creating long-term jobs, boosting our ailing economy and protecting our planet for future generations.”

A Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesperson said: “Onshore wind power capacity has almost quadrupled since 2010 and renewables account for nearly half of our electricity, up from just 7%. We’ve also streamlined planning rules in England to make it easier for councils to identify suitable land for onshore wind. Our latest renewables auction has its largest ever budget of £1bn, including a record £800m pot for offshore wind, to further strengthen our world-leading clean energy sector, supporting a range of renewables from onshore wind to solar.”

• Renewable energy
• Solar power
• Friends of the Earth

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World’s largest solar manufacturer to cut one-third of workforce

African leaders call for equity over minerals used for clean energy

EU countries already hitting some of their sustainable energy targets for 2030

Danish windfarm firm Ørsted to axe up to 800 jobs and pause dividend

UK to scrap ‘boiler tax’ after makers raise prices to cover any fines

Energy from data centres could heat UK swimming pools after green investment

World’s renewable energy capacity grew at record pace in 2023

Subsea project to bring renewable power from Scotland to England awarded £1.8bn

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Addressing the Environmental Kuznets Curve in the West African Countries: Exploring the Roles of FDI, Corruption, and Renewable Energy

• Published: 15 April 2024

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• Lobna Abid 1 , 3 ,
• Sana Kacem 1 , 4 &
• Haifa Saadaoui 2  

Environmental degradation and economic growth are two intricately related issues whose impact is in constant increase within a global context marked by climate risks and corruption, notably in certain African countries. This research work examines the impacts of economic growth, corruption, renewable energy, and foreign direct investment on carbon dioxide emissions for a set of West African economies between 1990 and 2020. The current paper uses the PMG-ARDL panel method in order to assess the relationships between the various variables invested. The results are indicative of the long-term effects of variables. These findings demonstrate that GDP per capita has a positive and significant effect on CO2 emissions, and that the Kuznet curve is not validated in this case. Moreover, FDI confirms the pollution heaven hypothesis as it reduces environmental quality in the long run. In contrast, renewable energy consumption and control corruption in West African countries constitute significant factors in the fight for environmental quality. The causality outcomes reveal that there exist one way of unidirectional link between CO2 to both income and corruption, and a one direction causality from FDI to CO2 emissions. Meanwhile, the link between renewable energy and CO2 emissions is neutral. In this respect, this research offers outstanding findings to help maintain influential procedures for environmental sustainability within the West African framework.

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Abid, L., Kacem, S. & Saadaoui, H. Addressing the Environmental Kuznets Curve in the West African Countries: Exploring the Roles of FDI, Corruption, and Renewable Energy. J Knowl Econ (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13132-024-01858-4

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Received : 08 April 2022

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s13132-024-01858-4

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