Business Trends in Practice. Бернард Марр
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A floating solar farm in the Maldives, which aims to provide clean energy to 360 million people who live in remote coastal areas
A solar bike path in the Netherlands
A solar-powered train tunnel in Belgium
A solar-powered airport in India
Overcoming the challenges with renewable energy
The challenge with renewable solutions is that we need energy 24 hours a day, yet sometimes there's simply no wind or sun, a problem known as “intermittency.” What's more, peak demand times may not coincide with peak energy production times. This means we need to find ways to store the energy produced, so that energy captured can be transmitted and used later. Currently, there's no effective way to store the electricity produced by renewable technologies for any real length of time. But this is one area where exciting changes are happening, such as the Advanced Clean Energy Storage scheme in Utah, a hydrogen-based renewable energy storage complex.7 Or there's Swiss startup Energy Vault, which is developing energy storage technology for intermittent renewable energy sources, inspired by pumped-storage plants that rely on the movement of water to generate power. Power-to-X – an umbrella term for processes that turn electricity into heat, hydrogen, or renewable synthetic fuels – may also play a role in solving the energy storage problem, and, in turn, accelerate the shift to renewables.8 So, too might distributed power generation (more on that later in the chapter).
There's also the uncomfortable fact that electric vehicles, solar panels, and wind turbines are using rare earth materials mined from the earth. China has a monopoly on these materials (see Chapter 1), meaning geopolitical challenges could play an increasing role in the energy sector.9
Investing in other energy alternatives
As well as investing in energy storage projects, we also need other clean energy alternatives – solutions that are able to generate a consistent, reliable supply of clean electricity when supply from renewable sources dips. For now, that means nuclear. I understand people's nervousness around nuclear power, but the technology is one of the safest and cleanest ways of producing energy. In the 60-year history of civil nuclear power, there have been three major accidents at power plants, with Fukushima Daiichi being the most recent in 2011 (imagine if the aviation industry had such a record), and, overall, nuclear energy results in 99.7 percent fewer deaths than coal and 97.5 percent fewer than gas (the safety record for wind and solar is even more impressive).10 Modern nuclear reactors are much safer than the ones we build decades ago. Looking ahead, we also have nuclear fusion edging closer (see Chapter 2), with the world's largest nuclear fusion project beginning assembly in France.11
We may also see advances in other alternative energy sources that could help to support wind and solar. These include:12
Tidal power, captured from wave energy. Portugal established the world's first commercial-scale wave farm in 2008.
Space-based solar power, which has already been proven viable by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.
Human power, where we generate power through our own bodies. For example, UK researchers have developed a knee brace that can produce electricity as the wearer walks.
Embeddable solar power, where potentially any window or sheet of glass can be turned into a photovoltaic solar cell. Researchers at Michigan State University are already working on scaling this technology.
Trend 2: The Decentralization of Energy
Decentralization is another trend driving the energy transformation. In simple terms, decentralization means shifting away from the traditional energy model in which monopolistic utilities providers with large power plants distribute energy to the end user. Instead, the energy networks of the future will be distributed, meaning more energy will be generated away from the main grid (thanks to a combination of renewable energy and localized “microgrids” – any localized energy grid that functions independently or as part of a larger, standard energy grid). With this model, consumers generate energy for their own needs. Many of us are already familiar with this idea through the use of rooftop solar panels, but decentralized schemes can serve anything from a single building to an entire city. This ultimately means organizations, local authorities, and consumers can take charge of their own energy portfolio.
The case for decentralized networks
Decentralized networks can help to cut energy prices, reduce carbon emissions, empower communities, and improve energy security by offering energy independence and protection during emergencies. To put it another way, it's a smart way to meet growing demand, while improving sustainability.13
Already decentralized networks are taking shape in the UK. Aberdeen City Council, for example, turned to district heating – the supply of heat from one source to a district or group of buildings – to solve the problem of fuel poverty in some of the city's housing stock, reducing typical fuel costs for tenants by 50 percent and cutting carbon emissions by 45 percent in the process. The council has plans to extend the network beyond the 1,500 flats and handful of municipal buildings initially connected in the scheme, and the team is also helping other local authorities realize the same benefits.14
Elsewhere in the UK, Bristol City Council has been working with the Carbon Trust to develop four district energy schemes across the city with a goal of reducing carbon emissions, cutting costs, and supporting future development in the city.15 Meanwhile, in the US, startups like Urban Energy are enabling distributed energy by turning rooftops in New York into community solar gardens.
In other words, public bodies and consumers are already beginning to realize that they can do it better than established energy providers and are taking control of their own energy destiny.
Overcoming the challenges
But it's not all rosy. One of the main challenges with decentralized energy is the lack of institutional knowledge and experience on how to develop and implement such projects, although organizations like the Carbon Trust and Urban Energy are helping to solve this.
Another challenge is how to cope with fluctuating demand patterns within these smaller grids (unlike, say, huge energy providers that can easily produce enough power at peak demand times). This is where technologies like AI can help (more on the digitization of energy coming up later). Using data from smart sensors, and smart energy storage solutions, decentralized systems can better manage local energy requirements and ensure power is supplied where and when needed. An example of this comes from Cornwall's Local Energy Market, which announced in 2019 that it had reached a “flexibility breakthrough” after installing a combination of solar, battery systems, and monitoring equipment into 100 homes and 125 businesses across Cornwall, England.16
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