In the early days of renewable energy development, attempts were made to predict or project likely energy contributions in the future. They mostly got it spectacularly wrong. Although it did seem clear that the theoretical potential was very high, in practice the realistic contribution in the short to medium term was seen as being relatively small.
In 1982, the UK Energy Technology Support Unit, based at the UKAEA nuclear labs at Harwell, explored the likely rate of diffusion of the various renewable energy technologies, using the ETSU supply/demand/ fuel price scenarios up to 2025 as a backdrop. ESTU’s R14 report concluded that ‘the technical potential of the renewable resources is about half to two thirds of the total UK energy supplied by oil, coal, gas and nuclear’. But it said ‘these are unrealistic figures since they take no account of the economic, environmental and market related factors’.
Thus by 2025, wind, tidal and geothermal power were seen in reality as, together, supplying at most, on the best scenario for renewables (i.e. assuming high fuel prices) only 5.8% of Britain’s electricity, with a maximum on-land wind energy installed capacity of 7.5 GW and only 4 GW off shore.
It is interesting to compare these projections with the estimates produced by the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB). For example, in 1981 it put the ‘ultimate’ off shore wind potential at 70GW. But in its 1982 evidence to the Sizewell B public inquiry, it concluded that, in the short term, ‘none of the renewable technologies could at present offer with any assurance an economic, reliable and sufficient source of energy to be competitive with nuclear power’. However, it claimed that renewables might prove attractive in the longer term, possibly contributing about 15% of Britain's grid electricity by 2030 ‘without major system operational difficulties’, rising to 20% if geothermal power was included. A 1981 CEGB review booklet on renewables noted that solar power ‘is never likely to be of much use for supplying electricity to the Grid in this county’.
For comparisons sake, the current renewables contribution is around 40%, with about 28G of wind capacity and 14GW of solar in place and over 50GW in all. Projections vary, but with wind and solar capacity likely to triple and more, some see zero carbon power being in sight. So ETSU and the CEGB both got it a bit wrong!
What about the USA? The US Department of Energy/EIA has arguably always been a bit cautious about renewables, with relatively low contributions assumed and projected forward. That did lead to some complaints e.g. concerning its very low PV estimates. The DoE/EIA coverage has maybe improved a bit subsequently. For example, a 2015 US Department of Energy report said that wind could supply 10% of US electricity by 2020, 20% by 2030, and 35% by 2050, and, certainly, that’s the way things seemed to be going, with, by 2016, renewables accounting for almost 20% of US generation capacity.
Of late, the situation has got even better: more money is now beginning to flow. Bidens’ Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) directed $369 billion toward clean energy technology, infrastructure, and climate mitigation. The energy-related parts of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act add another $75 billion. As Meredith Fowlie at the Energy Institute at Haas, UC Berkeley, has noted ‘This level of federal investment has the potential to be transformative.’ He cites some modelling exercises (see here, here, and here) which he says project that IRA incentives ‘will induce major increases in technology deployment’. For example, he notes that the REPEAT project estimates over 590 installed GW of utility solar and over 470 GW of onshore wind by 2030, compared to 97 GW and 136 GW today. So it’s all go there too, on a proportionately larger scale.
However, the USA is still a long way behind China in renewable capacity deployment, with only around 326 GW installed, compared with over 1,000 GW in China, and China is likely to expand its already vast renewables capacity even faster. As Carbon Brief noted ‘China is set to add at least 570 gigawatts (GW) of wind and solar power in the 14th five-year plan (FYP) period (2021–25), more than doubling its installed capacity in just five years, if targets announced by the central and provincial governments are realised’, with the wind and solar capacity probably reaching ‘more than 1,100GW by 2025, tripling the 360GW total installed in 2015 and doubling the 536GW at the end of 2020’. That would mean that, as long as it deals with its grid link problems, its 2030 renewable targets are also likely to be surpassed early.
Of course, if total emissions are to be cut, energy demand also needs attention - expanding renewables on its own is not enough, in China or anywhere else. But it is an important part of any strategy to limit climate change- reducing the need for fossil fuel combustion. And the signs are that renewables can expand rapidly to do much more of that- and soon. Certainly, very much more than was thought at one time. And that is showing in the projections. Not all of them are as optimistic as the 100% renewable energy scenarios from Jacobson in the USA, but as indicated in my last post, views are changing, with renewables now widely seen as the leading energy supply option, if not the only viable supply option for the long term.
Some names are changing too
With technology and policies changing fast, some institutional labels are also changing. BEIS, the UK Department of Business Energy & Industrial Strategy, is being split up with new separate 'Department of Energy Security and Net Zero', and Trade/Business Sci/Tech/Innovation Departments. The UK did have a Department of Energy (DEn) from 1974-92 and a Department Trade and Industry (DTI) from 1970-2007. Sometimes name changes do reflect important policy shifts, as with the creation of a Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC) which ran from 2008-2016. On the Business/Industry side that was coupled with DIUS and BERR (2007-09), and BIS (2009-2016).
All the these names were arguably better than the understandably short-lived 2005 'Department for Productivity, Energy and Industry' - the likely use of 'PEnIs' as a short hand did for it within a week. Let’s hope the new ‘DESNZ’ lasts a lot longer than that. The US has stayed with the ‘Department of Energy’ label over the whole period, and most of the state bureaucracies in China seem the be unchanged! But, as indicated above, it’s not just about names - it’s the policies that really matter
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