Potential solutions: renewable electricity production systems

Next to a hut in Uto, we learn that renewable energies will play a key role in this energy transition, and that three sources of sustainable electricity production stand out among them: hydro, wind and solar.

These three account for approximately 95% of the world’s installed renewable energy capacity, with hydropower dominating with half of that number, while wind and solar are very evenly matched. However, economic, geographic and environmental constraints mean that solar and wind power are expected to dominate renewable electricity production in the coming years.

One of these reasons is that technological development has brought the costs of both types of electricity production down to lower values (even 50% lower) than those associated with fossil fuels. This fact, and the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, will be a determining factor in the energy transition in which we are involved. Although, undoubtedly, the transition process will be long, irregular between regions of the world, and not without its problems, among which we will look at the risks to biodiversity.

If you are interested on how the price of electricity production by renewable energies has changed along the last decades, and the prospects it opens, the following article goes directly to the subject:

https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth

And here, in the latest Renewable Capacity Highlights, you have updated data which show the construction of new power plants is dominated since 2015 by those of renewables:

https://www.irena.org/publications/2022/Apr/Renewable-Capacity-Statistics-2022