Читать книгу Renewable Energy - David Elliott - Страница 14

In the short term, some say, the changeover to renewables may incur extra costs, perhaps, according to one EU-focused study, adding up to 30% to the total-system cost (Zappa, Junginger and den Broek 2019). However, that view has been disputed in the case of the European Union (EU) (Beam 2019) and is also challenged in many of the global ‘high renewables’ scenarios that have emerged. Instead, it is argued that, as the new system develops, direct and indirect costs should fall since there would be no use of increasingly expensive fossil fuels, and the social and environmental costs of their use would be avoided. As renewable costs continue to fall, and climate threats rise, that view does seem attractive.

Nevertheless, a big political issue in the interim is whether the falling cost of renewables will ensure that the cost of their rapid expansion will avoid a backlash from consumers. The implementation/support costs certainly have been a problem. As a result, some expansion programme slowdowns have been imposed (across the EU and also in China), ostensibly on the basis of fears about the rising costs of support schemes. These cutbacks have been buttressed by the rise of populist backlashes from those who feel they have been left out or left behind in social and economic terms, which has added a new political dimension and feeding back, around the world, into reaction against ostensibly progressive change (O’Neill 2018). In parallel, in relation to the cost of energy transitions there have been warnings, from otherwise divergent camps, about the need for ‘energy justice’ (Monyei et al. 2018) and the risk of increased fuel poverty (Beisner 2019).

While there are certainly social equity issues to be addressed (McGee and Greiner 2019; Sovacool 2013), and I will look at them later, there are also wider strategic energy perspectives which may present challenges to renewables, such as the belief that other options would be better and cheaper, for example nuclear and fossil carbon capture (Aris 2018).

Technically, the renewables case is strong. The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) claims that renewable energy, along with energy efficiency, can provide more than 90% of the necessary energy-related CO₂ emissions reductions (IRENA 2018). The economic impact case is also good: despite fears about the cost of the energy transition, it may not in fact cost consumers too much. The European Commission (EC) says that, under its proposed renewables-led transition, ‘by 2050, households would spend 5.6% of income on energy-related expenses, i.e. nearly 2 percentage points lower than in 2015 and lower than the share in 2005’ (EC 2018). However, that is speculative, and the EC does include more than just renewables in its proposed mix, as do some other studies. Indeed, although most agree that renewables will boom, some see fossil fuel, and possibly nuclear, remaining as a vital part of the energy mix into the far future (BP 2019; WEC 2019).

So the question remains: are they right, or can the renewables meet all our energy needs? That may depend on what sort of future global energy system and economy we are looking to create, how rapidly the changes can be made and how we go about making them, issues explored in subsequent chapters.

The first part of the book focuses on the technological aspects, starting off, in chapter 2, with an overview of the technological options and key related transition issues. Chapter 3 then looks at what energy supply technology choices have been made in some of the existing future-energy scenarios, while chapter 4 looks at system integration and balancing requirements and options.

The second part of the book moves on from essentially technologically defined issues and options to an exploration of the wider strategic issues and choices, including social change options, asking whether we can and should move to a low- or zero-growth sustainable energy future. Chapter 5 looks at the issue of growth, and at the need for a socially equitable transition process, while chapter 6 focuses on the wider geopolitics of the transition. Chapter 7 looks at some examples of what is happening around the world, leading to an overall conclusion in chapter 8.