“Renewables are now the cheapest energy options in most places”
Rapid transformation is upon us when it comes to renewable energy, and digitalization is key to increasing that trend.
What are some of the latest innovations? And how are they fueling exponential change in the energy sector?
These are questions that were answered in the recent Exponential Climate Action Summit, when four experts gathered to discuss what’s happening in the energy sector to combat climate change.
In his introductory keynote, Adnan Amin, former director-general of the International Renewable Energy Agency, outlined the foundation for the current renewables revolution:
“We now have a suite of technologies from solar, wind, geothermal, hydro which are the cheapest power generation technologies in the world in most places. That has led to an exponential increase…in capacity.”
In the past decade, he cited, solar PV (commonly known as solar cells) prices have fallen by about 90 percent. Onshore wind has gone down 50 percent, and offshore by about 35 percent.
What fuels this energy revolution?
Amin described three broad trends that are driving the current massive expansion in renewables.
1. Decarbonization — with increasing pressure now on public and private energy sectors to decarbonize in line with climate trends.
2. Decentralization. Now millions of small producers sell into the electric wholesale market, which is democratizing the energy sector. It’s no longer the top-down market it once was; it’s much more decentralized.
3. Digitalization, which is making that decentralization increasingly possible. Machine-learning artificial intelligence algorithms are being integrated to manage millions of producers and consumers in a completely new way.
But…is it all happening quickly enough to meet the 1.5° targets?
“The jury is still out,” said Amin.
He believes policy work is required to create the necessary exponential change. For example, fossil fuel subsidies should be phased out; policy must support more effective functioning of electric markets worldwide; digitalization of energy should be incentivized; and innovation in the sector must be better supported.
Following Amin’s keynote was a panel discussion among industry leaders Jonas Eklind, CEO of long-duration renewable energy storage company Azelio; Dorothée D’Herde, Vodafone Group’s head of sustainable business; and Dale Vince, founder of green energy company Ecotricity and founder of the Forest Green Rovers, recognized by FIFA as the world’s greenest football club.
How is each of these companies contributing to exponential climate action?
Jonas Eklind spoke of long-duration storage being a necessity for zero emissions. Azelio reduces CO2 emissions by up to 98 percent, he said. They do this by storing renewable energy as thermal energy — a low-cost, long-duration, and dispatchable way of storing. “What we do is we store renewable energy as thermal energy, and that’s a very low-cost way of storing. And that’s why we can provide this long-duration energy storage to a very low cost and to a very good performance.”
Azelio can store solar and wind energy wherever you are on the globe, said Eklind, making dispatchable, renewable energy available 24 hours a day. The source is normally solar but can be any type of renewable. “What we provide is that you can store solar and wind energy wherever you are, in any place on the globe,” said Eklind, “and then you can provide dispatchable renewable energy 24 hours a day. So the source is normally solar, but it can be any type of renewables. But the cheapest way to charge the system is today with solar energy.” Scaling this solution is possible by putting up many distributive systems around the globe, which Azelio has already begun.
At Vodafone, said Dorothée D’Herde, exponential expansion is already happening, with an estimated one-third of 100 million Internet of Things (IOT) connections directly enabling customers to reduce emissions. That proportion is expected to increase over time, and by 2025 the IOT is expected to reach one billion connections. Vodafone aims to reduce carbon emissions by 350 million tonnes by 2030 through IOT.
Ecotricity built the UK’s first national electric vehicle charging network, the Electric Highway. Dale Vince spoke of how ten years ago when they began, no one was buying electric cars because they couldn’t charge them, and no one was building chargers because there weren’t enough electric cars on the road. Now, Ecotricity’s charging infrastructure powers about 1.5 million miles of driving each month, all based on renewable energy.
It’s still not a profitable operation at this point, he noted, although the industry is in rapid change. By 2025, it could be cheaper to purchase and own an electric car than an ICE (internal combustion engine) car.
Before the close of this segment of the summit, questions from the audience came in.
As part of their innovation in being green, Vince’s football club, the Forest Green Rovers, provides only vegan food. Asked how he managed to persuade British football fans to eat vegan pies, he had this to say:
“It was easy…We made some fantastic food. The bar in football food is really quite low, so our food stands out. Our fans came, and tried it, and loved it. Away fans came, and tried it, and loved it. And it’s something the club has become famous for.
Another question from the audience confronted data privacy in the expansion of digitalization. Can the public feel secure?
Adnan Amin answered that the increasing reality is that all our data will not be secure and that data exclusivity in this day and age is not feasible, because data is now a business commodity — a tool, an asset.
What is needed, he added, is an understanding of how data can be made more anonymous and for strong security protocols to be implemented. “If we are going to have the confidence of the public in the momentum…toward digitalization and technological development, then we have to do something about this, and I think right now we don’t have the tools in place.”
Written by LISA BAILEY
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