In a column today, Joe Romm reports on (and explains) the changing technology and economics of renewable energy. For example, Germany now gets 20% of its energy from renewable sources.
Many innovations have changed the market factors. One of the most important is more efficiency in the grid so that renewable energy can be delivered to a wider set of customers. Another is increasingly efficient battery technologies.
According to Alexander MacDonald, co-lead author and recently retired director of NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory, “Our research shows a transition to a reliable, low-carbon, electrical generation and transmission system can be accomplished with commercially available technology and within 15 years.”
A very exciting and hopeful report!
Renewable Revolution is unstoppable
The last line says it all:
As the world gets increasingly serious about replacing fossil fuels with low carbon energy, it seems increasingly clear that a combination of the technologies and strategies discussed above will be able to incorporate very large amounts of renewable electricity into the electric grid cost-effectively. The “intermittency” problem is essentially solved. The will-power problem, however, isn’t.