World over, we witness these days a trend, a transition from dirty power to green power, ie. decarbonisation of power consumption. The other day, reading an article in HBR, referred below, it was interesting to know of the stages a country has to transition through necessarily in its journey from being energy deficient to energy sufficient. Germany is the country that is in the forefront of moving from non-renewable dirty power to renewable green power, almost 30% of energy consumed is green.
 |
| Bhadlam solar plant, 2245 MW, Rajasthan, India. |
The European Union is also taking great steps besides China and India to go green. There is as yet no confirmed response from the government of the United States of America in this direction, other than a very strange okay to the 2015 - 2030 Paris Accord. US did not sign the Kyoto Protocol leading to it's failure and final dismantling. As regards climate change and environmental sustainability, we need cooperation from all countries of the world.
EU goals are aimed at a 20% cut in Green House Gas emissions from power generation, ensuring at least 20% of energy consumption from renewable sources and a minimum 20% improvement in energy generating, storage and transmission efficiencies.
The other great trend we are witnessing these days around the developed world and in some developing countries like Bangladesh is the decentralisation of power production. The Bangladesh energy startup SOLshare have setup peer-to-peer microgrids that deliver solar energy to households and businesses across important cities and towns of Bangladesh.
Click here for the list of the largest solar power plants of the world as of 2019 ..
The three major trends happening around the world in decarbonisation of power consumption are listed here..
1. Energiewende 1.0 - there is adoption of renewable sources of energy from solar, wind, biomass and geothermal, but not to a point of inflection, just less than 10% of the total energy needs of the country.
2. Energiewende 2.0 is a hybrid setup, a phase of transition in a country's power transition where a greater portion of the power comes from intermittent, weather dependent power sources. There will be frequent intervention by grid operators to keep the grid in balance. When there demand is higher than the renewable generation, non-renewable generator sets running on hydrocarbon fuels or nuclear energy step in to meet the increased power demand.
3. Energiewende 3.0 is more striking, the energy generation and distribution will move from a public infrastructure setup to a private business. No country in the world has ever reached this state. A comparison would be the common bathing pools of the yore, where people used to go to the common well or pond for bathing, but not any more, we have private bathrooms and hygiene networks at our homes which enables us to wash ourselves at our own convenience.
When everything goes private, Energiewende 3.0 though it does not fully exclude any country or society from not having high voltage transmission networks, the question arises who will bear the cost of installing and maintaining these large infrastructure setups, necessitating government interference. The public networks would have transitioned to private networks then and who would look at the setting up and maintenance of the public networks connecting communities.
When everything goes private, Energiewende 3.0 though it does not fully exclude any country or society from not having high voltage transmission networks, the question arises who will bear the cost of installing and maintaining these large infrastructure setups, necessitating government interference. The public networks would have transitioned to private networks then and who would look at the setting up and maintenance of the public networks connecting communities.
Energy deficient developing countries of Africa and some areas of Asia, including India and the Arab world who still do not have efficient energy networks will find their transition from scratch straight to Energiewende 3.0 smooth and efficient, often skipping Energiewende stages 1 and 2. A new breed of solar entrepreneurs will start supplying power on a peer-to-peer network to households and businesses, as SOLshare from Bangladesh, trading power for profit.
This global energy transformation from non-renewables to renewables is happening across the world, as power is an inseparable component of modern human societal needs and vital for the development of a society and country. The more safe a society or country is regarding it's power, the more globally competitive will its industries be.
George
Ref : 1. Burger, Christopher and Jens Weinmann, 3 stages of a country embracing renewable energy , HBR, April 17, 2017
No comments:
Post a Comment