Driven by pressures for a cleaner environment and for mitigating the effects of global warming, the pace has picked up for the deployment of renewables based energy. Cost of renewable power has come down drastically. Some challenges still need to be overcome like on the storage battery front and alternatives to lithium. Technological developments are continuing and need to be speeded up.
Notwithstanding the personal views of the man holding the most important office on planet earth, the rest of humanity is more or less convinced that climate change is indeed real. And the urgency to arrest global warming has never been more than today. Each day brings fresh evidence of global warming, the latest being the breakaway of a titanic iceberg in Antarctica. Fortunately, the renewed commitments to adopt renewable energy have been on an equally epic scale. In 2016 a record 161 GW of renewable power capacity was installed. Solar contributed 47% to this capacity addition, followed by wind and hydro at 34% and 16% respectively. The total global renewable power capacity is now a little more than 2000 GW.
Despite a 3% growth in global economy and the resultant increase in demand for energy, energy-related CO2 emission has remained flat for a third year in a row. While this can be partly attributed to improvements in energy efficiency, it also clearly demonstrates the growing share of renewable energy resources in the new global economy. The share of renewable sources in global energy consumption was 18.3% in 2014. The target is to double this share by 2030; a goal that is acknowledged as extremely stiff.
Renewables
However, it is electricity production that has witnessed the most dramatic growth of renewables. Renewables are now the second largest source of global electricity production, second only to coal and ahead of gas, oil and nuclear. In fact, electricity produced from renewable resources has been growing faster than total electricity production since 1990! The cost of electric power produced from renewable sources has been plummeting and is currently below the cost of fossil fuel generated power in many countries including India. Investment analysts are now betting that renewables will be the cheapest source of power in every country by 2020.
Electricity production accounts for only 20% of primary energy consumption globally. A larger slice of the primary energy pie, as much as one-third, is consumed by the transport sector. Use of electrical energy in transportation is miniscule, despite its dominant share in rail transport. This is likely to change as transport technology is poised on the cusp of a major transformation. Norway and Netherlands plan to phase out petrol and diesel- powered cars by 2025. India and France plan to do the same by 2030 and 2040 respectively. Volvo, the Scandinavian automobile giant, says that from 2019 all its cars will be completely or partially powered by electricity, and calls it a “historic end” to cars that have only the internal combustion engine. More auto majors are likely to follow suit in the coming years.
Energy demand in transport sector is intermittent in nature. Energy locked up in hydrocarbon molecules of petrol and diesel is extremely convenient for meeting this fluctuating demand. We need to replicate this ease in batteries at an affordable cost. Battery contributes 40% to the cost of an electric car. Tesla, the battery pioneer, is facing serious competition in both Europe and China. Daimler, which owns Mercedes-Benz is investing 500 million euro to set up a plant to build energy storage units. China is reportedly constructing as many as 9 battery building factories. Battery costs have dropped from $542/kwh in 2012 to its present level of $139/kwh. With the completion of the aforesaid factories, global battery production is expected to more than double by 2021. The cost of batteries is likely to drop by 40% from its current level. Batteries will be an important enabler of the penetration of renewables into transportation sector.
Energy Storage
Both solar and wind, the two dominant forms of renewables, are cyclical in nature. Hence energy storage is important for the largescale adoption of renewables, irrespective of the end use. Early this year, the largest lithium-ion battery project in the world went on stream in California. Built by Tesla, it can store 80 MWH of power, adequate for feeding 2500 households for an entire day. We need many such storage units if we have to smoothen out the variable power supply from renewables and seamlessly integrate it into the distribution grid fed by conventional sources. Germany, Denmark and Portugal are among the few countries that have demonstrated the possibility of meeting their total electricity demand entirely from renewable sources, by installing such battery backups in the grid.
The technology behind solar and wind power have reached the plateau of maturity in the Hype Cycle. This explains why both capital and operating costs have dropped to the present lows. But the same cannot be said for battery technology. The longevity of batteries is a prime concern, as they get pummeled by repeated charge-discharge cycles. Though numbers are not readily forthcoming, state-of-the art batteries today are believed to possess a useful life of 5000 cycles. This is inadequate for a large distribution grid. Fears are already being raised about the supply of lithium, the mainstay of today’s batteries. Price of lithium carbonate has more than doubled since 2015. Supplies are controlled by a handful of companies who operate mines in South America and Australia. Lithium production has to increase 15 times in next 2 decades to meet the growing demand. sources, by installing such battery backups in the grid. The technology behind solar and wind power have reached the plateau of maturity in the Hype Cycle. This explains why both capital and operating costs have dropped to the present lows. But the same cannot be said for battery technology. The longevity of batteries is a prime concern, as they get pummeled by repeated charge-discharge cycles. Though numbers are not readily forthcoming, state-of-the art batteries today are believed to possess a useful life of 5000 cycles. This is inadequate for a large distribution grid.
Fears are already being raised about the supply of lithium, the mainstay of today’s batteries. Price of lithium carbonate has more than doubled since 2015. Supplies are controlled by a handful of companies who operate mines in South America and Australia. Lithium production has to increase 15 times in next 2 decades to meet the growing demand.
Lithium ion batteries are not the only means of storing electricity. Many experts are now conceding that using rare elements in batteries is not the best long-term option. But no clear alternative has emerged on the horizon, despite being no rocket science. Funding of research remains woefully inadequate and has been largely limited to incremental improvements. Building cheap and large batteries is the Holy Grail for renewable revolution to get underway.
Postscript: No story on energy can be told without recourse to statistics Aaron Levenstein’s famous quote – “statistics are like bikinis, what they reveal is suggestive but what they conceal is vital” – cannot be truer for energy and emissions. While researching for this story, I was overwhelmed with data, that often contradicted each other. I realised that energy and emissions are too enormous and complex to be cloaked under numbers Hence, I have consciously tried to keep statistics to the minimum.
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