2.1: What has the “renewables (RES) sector” changed over the last 10 years?
RES has already increased their share from 26% of total power capacity in 2005 to 47% in 2017. By 2017, the total RES capacity installed in the EU was 455 GW, 169 GW was in wind and 107 GW in PV, both accounting for 29.5% of the EU power mix.
2.2: Why is energy transition an irreversible process in most countries?
As far as the EU power system is concerned, the energy transition to RES is today consistently seen an irreversible process. It evolved from a timid policy-driven process to a mainstream investment that will have substantial impact on the economy of the next decades. Europe is certainly going for green growth.
What has the “renewables (RES) sector” changed over the last 10 years?
The early investment incentives, decisions and politically ambitions promoted in several countries in EU and beyond to achieve an “energy transition” made the concept of RES evolve. Why?
In 2018 and also the years to come, RES will no doubt increase their penetration into the electric systems aiming at the achieving global climate goals defined by COP21/COP 22 – limiting global temperature increase to 1.5 °C. RES has already increased their share from 26% of total power capacity in 2005 to 47% in 2017.
In terms of cost, the average cost of on-shore wind decreased by 35% and the of PV by almost 80% between 2008 and 2015.
This increase in the penetration trend is not only due to the environmental emission constraints but also due to the fact that at least some RE sources are already cheaper than conventional energy.
By 2017, the total RES capacity installed in the EU was 455 GW, 169 GW was in wind and 107 GW in PV, both accounting for 29.5% of the EU power mix.
Wind power was the energy technology with the highest capacity installations in 2017. With 15.6 GW, it accounted for 55.2% of all new installations.
Solar PV came second with 6 GW, accounting for 21.5%, overtaking the conventional power sources, such as fuel oil and coal. (Source: 2017 European Statistics, WindEurope)
But other renewable energy recourses, such as biomass, geothermal, solar thermal electricity, etc., are technologically able to reliably integrate such and even more volumes of intermittent generation sources remained much less deployed in Europe, only accounted for X% in Europe.
Somehow these manageable renewable energy recourses seem to be forgotten in today’s mix of energy use.
The renewable energy sector should today no longer be defined generically only based on the CO2-free generation features, but according to:
The intermittence vs. manageability, with a massive impact on the value of the kWh price in a power system
Level of deployment, with a massive impact on investment cost levels, frequently wrongly used as a dominant investment criterion
The result is a massively unbalanced ratio between intermittent and manageable renewable generation sources in Europe which will lead to unsustainable electrical systems in the Member States especially when conventional plants will be decommissioned and their capacity need to be replaced.
Why is energy transition an irreversible process in most countries?
The COP21 confirmed the imperative commitment of the international community to decarbonize the planet. Much in line with this success, the Juncker Commission had set Europe becoming Nr1 in RES as the highest priority target.
Wind and PV are currently the fastest-growing sources of electricity globally. (See 2.1)
As far as the EU power system is concerned, the energy transition to RES is today consistently seen an irreversible process.
It evolved from a timid policy-driven process to a mainstream investment that will have substantial impact on the economy of the next decades. Europe is certainly going for green growth.
However, the proper development of the “RES sector” that started in the late 90ies as a “niche market” that did not impact the utilities. The power market is today the most important investment driver for new generation in Europe.
But the RES sector, triggered market forces and some trade policies agreements, has strongly evolved. Beyond the common denominator (the fact of not producing CO2 emissions), the sector delivers 2 types of power generation:
Non-manageable sources with a grid integration problem and market sustainability issues;
manageable sources as most sustainable solution to grid integration and decarbonisation;
Here is the essential point why STE is neither "obsolete" as technology nor “irrelevant” as a market. It is just a matter of time to prepare with STE the moment when EU will need flexible green generation to further progress towards decarbonisation)
