Pressure on the electricity grid is rising all the time, because of increasing local production: solar and wind energy. An increasing number of companies needs to wait for a connection. But there is a solution: a local network comprising solar … Read more
Wind turbines have a bad reputation, particularly in respect of their effect on flying creatures like bats and birds. But new research shows that we can overcome this problem, to a large extent. As told by Katarina Zimmer in Knowable … Read more
We know that fossil and nuclear energy, and mining of resources, can have most unwanted social effects on local communities. Now this appears to be true for solar projects as well. As is testified to by a Chinese plan for … Read more
After many years of unashamed scepticism, the International Energy Agency finally published a positive report about renewable energy; in their World Energy Outlook 2023. But with a warning: we need to step up in order to restrict global warming to … Read more
Recently, we argued that we are near ‘peak energy’. Global energy demand has slowed down a lot; it will probably peak within a few years. But solar and wind energy are in the middle of a take-off. What are the … Read more
The growth of solar and wind power has sparked a debate on how much renewable energy the grid can carry. The more solar we add to the grid, the less valuable it becomes. Can we escape from this dilemma and … Read more
Already in our 2016 energy forecasts, we foresaw a much more favourable development of renewable energy than authoritative organizations: energy companies, the oil industry and international bodies like the IEA. Finally, from 2021 onwards, they start revising upwards their forecasts. … Read more
The sun doesn’t always shine. Sometimes there is not a breath of wind, sometimes it storms. As we move forward towards sustainable sources in the energy transition, we need to balance better supply and demand. Data are a prerequisite for … Read more
Optimistic messages on renewable energy abound. According to a major scientific article, ‘a greener, healthier, and safer global energy system is also likely to be cheaper’. Much cheaper. But official policies and official forecasts still stay on the ‘safe side’. … Read more
The first assessment of solar and wind power performance over 2022 has been published, by independent climate think tank Ember. Both forms of energy production did very well. Together, they accounted for 12% of global electricity production, as opposed to … Read more
Energy storage doesn’t dominate the news. Sustainable energy gets all the credits: solar, wind, hydropower. But these can only make a difference when combined with energy storage. And the good news is: this is in rapid development. High prices, rapid … Read more
Renewable energy continues to grow spectacularly. Investments grow faster than in almost any other economic sector. Prices comes down all the time. It has such a success that a new problem comes to the fore. How do we going to … Read more
So far, many analysts expected high-renewable energy scenarios to be beneficial to the global climate; but maybe a bit expensive as well. A recent study argues that this too pessimistic. The green energy transition will in fact be much cheaper … Read more
Solid state batteries are going to provide a new boost to electric driving. They are in full development; but solid state battery-equipped cars will probably not hit the market before 2025. These batteries will have more capacity than lithium-ion batteries … Read more
Thermal batteries are yet another way to store an excess of solar and wind power. According to the laws of physics, they would seem to incur major energy losses. But on the other hand, they might be very cheap and … Read more
The contours of the future energy system haven’t yet been drawn with great precision. Solar and wind energies lie at its foundation. But these come with their problems: at times they produce too much, at times too little energy. We … Read more
There are many reasons for use of more solar energy. Most importantly, the climate. Moreover, the world needs to scale down its use of gas and oil quickly. More solar power? We can do that. Even in a densely populated … Read more
More European solar PV production capacity, a better alternative to the expensive, slow, risky and misguided path of nuclear energy. This article was first published on Renewable Carbon News of nova-Institute. The European nuclear lobby, already thought dead, is trying … Read more
Solar energy is making a breakthrough. Solar panels become cheaper all the time. Therefore, structural problems, like their diluted electricity production, become less important. Even in a country with little space like the Netherlands. But how will solar energy be … Read more
For decades, the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) spread the message ‘that the energy transition will happen faster and be less costly than many people think’; in the words of CEO Jules Kortenhorst. And now, their predictions are becoming reality. In … Read more
Integration of PV into the economy will become the main task in the years to come. Sustainability in the production chain is becoming more important all the time. The advantage of solar energy used to be that it was renewable: … Read more
In the past few decades, solar energy (PV) has grown a lot; the number of applications has much increased and production has become much more large-scale. Costs have taken a dive, and dramatically so. The ambitions for solar energy are … Read more
This month, before publication of their NZE2050 scenario, the International Energy Agency considerably upped its forecast for solar and wind energy. Even after the major upward revision already done in its World Energy Outlook 2020. Solar PV is now ‘the … Read more
In an unprecedented move, the International Energy Agency (IEA) published its NZE2050 scenario this month: towards net zero carbon emissions in 2050. Required for a climate strategy that limits the rise of global temperatures to 1.5oC. NZE2050 marks a major … Read more
Costs of producing renewable energy keep coming down; and technologies for cheap energy storage keep evolving. Therefore, the eternal problems with solar and wind energy appear to be more and more outdated (‘what to do if the sun doesn’t shine … Read more
The most important low-carbon energy sources, renewables and nuclear, compete for investment funds. But if we are not mistaken, the dice have already been thrown in this contest of renewables versus nuclear. Renewables have won. Although it might still take … Read more
A recent article in Nature Energy confirms what we might have surmised already: renewable sources are much better at creating a low-carbon energy future than nuclear power. They do need quite another electricity infrastructure. But grid companies quickly learn how … Read more
In Europe, most people seem to have lost their belief in improvement. A concept of dreamers. But improvement takes place all the time; and the odd thing about this is that many improvements are swift and fundamental in nature, but … Read more
The solutions are here!, talking about major global problems. Solutions that exist already but are not generally applied. Or that are under severe and undeserved attack and therefore receive insufficient support. We have in mind: renewable energy and energy storage, … Read more
Researchers at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, have developed a new technology for drinking-water production. They use metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) that remove ions dissolved in salt or brackish water, producing potable water. The MOFs can be regenerated quickly, under the … Read more
The Dutch Wadden islands aimed to attain energy autarky in 2020. They fail to reach that target. For in order to do this, energy production and consumption don’t just need to match over a year; they also need to match … Read more
The European Academies’ Science Advisory Council (EASAC) urges the European Commission to base its carbon accounting on science and the real effects on climate. The present accounting rules favour energy from biomass. Whereas often, burning biomass doesn’t lower CO2 emissions … Read more
Battery recycling is an area long neglected by battery producers. Performance and cost were much more important. So now we are stuck with a rapidly growing heap of worn-out batteries of which we don’t know how to treat it. Or … Read more
Solar energy is rapidly becoming so cheap that it can crowd out other land uses, like agriculture. The farmer may earn a lot more from a monoculture of solar panels than from any crop. But this is an unfortunate development; … Read more
The energy transition has progressed quite a bit. To the extent that we can predict the outcome: renewable energy sources will win. But the real problems are surfacing now. The old energy system and the new energy sources have a … Read more
It its latest report, Boston-based Lux Research investigates a global and sustainable energy infrastructure. Can areas with high energy demand but not endowed with much domestic wind and solar energy become self-sufficient? Or will they need to import sustainably sourced … Read more
By the end of last year, Dutch Rathenau Institute produced a thought-provoking report on the energy transition (in Dutch). We need artificial intelligence, sensors and other data applications in the energy transition, according to the report. Because we need to … Read more
Solutions for global problems tend to become part of a compromise, says Huub de Groot. He is a professor in biophysical organic chemistry at Leiden University and works, among others, on artificial photosynthesis, ‘biosolar cells’. Technology moves into our private … Read more
As the debate on the energy transition heats up, stakeholders now retreat on their original positions, after a phase in which they politely listened to each other. Some call for action to save the planet, with increasing exasperation; others have … Read more
It may take a long time before wind turbines will actually generate energy, even in a ‘technical landscape’, as our editor Paul Reinshagen called the Dutch province of Flevoland, an area reclaimed from the sea. It will take a long … Read more
In February, BP published a new Energy Outlook. The main difference with previous outlooks lies in its renewable energy forecasts. The previous ones were scandalously low. The company partly redressed this state of affairs, and even confessed that it had … Read more
Whereas some solar power projects are large-scale, covering entire fields, and other projects cover entire rooftops, solar power can also be used small-scale. Starting small is a good strategy for people who cannot afford big sized solar panels at once. … Read more
The latest Renewables Global Status Report contains an instructive paragraph on drivers for renewable energy development. Otherwise than many might expect, climate policy is not the most important driver anymore. Cost-effectiveness comes to the forefront. And: renewable energy development is … Read more
IEA Global Energy Outlook 2017, released last November, marks a rapid development in the perspective on renewable energy. IEA has always downplayed the importance of renewable energy for future global energy supply; but in its latest outlook, renewable energy and … Read more
The world will have to take another look at renewable energy. We need to start thinking visionary and large-scale. Time is over when solar and wind energies had to adapt themselves to their environment. On the contrary, from now on … Read more
Renewable energy sources are by nature ready to harvest anywhere in the world, and therefore not a source of international conflict by themselves. However, they depend in part on critical materials – materials of which the supply is by no … Read more
Geopolitics has long circled around reserves of fossil fuels, the most critical assets in a fossil-based world. But although they will be around for a few more decades, fossil fuels will gradually become less important as a global power factor. … Read more
Some energy analysts propose that system changes will seriously slow down the advent of sustainable and intermittent energy sources. Grid instability and/or its prevention would add appreciably to sustainable energy costs. But some system changes will propel, rather than slow … Read more
In the early days of renewable energy development, its adversaries would tell the world that renewable sources would be hopelessly inadequate. Traditional (fossil and/or nuclear based) systems would be indispensable because we would also need energy when the wind wouldn’t … Read more
The solar industry is in turmoil. The price of solar panels falls continuously and each year demand grows by 30%. This poses a major challenge to an industry that is quite sizeable already, with an expected turnover of some $ … Read more