Renewable Energy 2016: What just happended in the last decade?: Part I: China

I did a minor project long time back in my schools (around year 2000) on Renewable Energy. I went about collecting pictures of the various dams in India and went to the NTPC(National Thermal Power Corporation) to get details on Solar, Biogas, Tidal and other Geothermal energies (Little did I and probably the world know at that time about the potential of the Wind energy :)). So my overall understanding was that yes we have this renewable energy component which is quite exciting and mainly comprises of Hydro-power energy and the others (like Solar, Biogas, Wind),while they are still there, are either very expensive or can only be used at a very small scale and probably are good for Geography and Science lessons to the students.

I got disconnected from this topic for some one and half decade and then come 2015 and as I read some related articles and explore more and more.. its just WoW.. where we are in Renewable Energy sector and whats the potential for the future :)

As of end of 2014, the estimated Renewable Energy Share of Global Electricity Production is 22.8%.

The below table gives an overview on how the renewable energy capacity got increased in the last decade.
The renewable power capacity, including hydro stood at 1,712 GW and not including hydro stood at 657 GW at end of 2014.
These detail are from the REN21 Global Status Report 2015 which showcases the Renewable Energy data till end of 2014 and also provides projections for the future.
http://www.ren21.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/REN12-GSR2015_Onlinebook_low1.pdf

So the clear analysis based on the above figures is that the Solar and Wind Energy is leading the show in a big way in the last decade with Solar Energy capacity moving from just 2.6 GW in 2004 to 177 GW in 2014 and Wind Power capacity moving from 48 GW in 2004 to 370 GW in 2014.

Data from some other sources like GWEC site for Wind energy and IRENA site for RE provide an insight that the end of 2015 data report should have the renewable energy, not including hydro somewhere around 800 GW from last year's 657 GW (with 63 GW of added Wind energy and 48 GW of Solar PV Energy as the major sources). 

With such 21% Energy capacity increase in just one year, I would be eagerly awaiting this 2016 report from REN21 to get the better picture.

http://www.gwec.net/

http://www.irena.org/DocumentDownloads/Publications/IRENA_RE_Capacity_Statistics_2016.pdf

Also we see from the report that the Solar heating and fuel for transport have their own piece of success stories but lets focus on the big 2 sources in this article going forward: Solar and Wind Energy, and where exactly is this increase in energy capacity coming from.

Wind Energy

So the Story of Wind Energy capacity in the world is that from just 17 GW in 2000, it has reached a whooping 432 GW in 2015.

Of this, China has the maximum share of around 33% which constitutes around 145 GW of current Wind Energy. In 2015 alone, China added 30.5 GW of Wind energy and the country is forecast to have 250 GW of wind capacity by 2020. China has identified wind power as a key growth component of the country's economy; researchers from Harvard and Tsinghua University have found that China could meet all of their electricity demands from wind power through 2030. However, in practice, the use of wind energy in China has not always kept up with the remarkable construction of wind power capacity in the country as US could generate higher energy in TWh for the same installed capacity. So with improving Transmission lines and better connectivity to the grid China can probably also cater to the energy losses. 

Another interesting development is the Offshore Wind power generation. Stronger wind speeds are available offshore compared to on land, so offshore wind power’s contribution in terms of electricity supplied is higher and such installations are on the rise.

Some of the challenges though for Wind Energy are the Wildlife impacts (the turbine blades pose a threat to birds and bats), Noise Impacts, Cost and Identifying suitable sites. Some technological developments and awareness has been created on these fronts. One of the articles below can provide some details on these challenges.

http://energy.gov/eere/wind/advantages-and-challenges-wind-energy

Solar Energy

The story for Solar Energy is another interesting one. With just 2.6 GW PV capacity in 2004, the PV energy capacity by end of 2014 reached 177 GW and and may well reach 230 GW in the 2015 year end report.

One of the biggest factor in this transformation is the reduced prices of the silicon PV cells due to technological innovations and also due to mass production. The cost of the silicon PV cell in US$ per watt is down to just $0.30 as of 2015 and this makes the Solar PV industry a competitive proposition to the conventional fossil fuel based energy industry. The major stride forward in the Solar energy sector again has been taken by China with 43 GW capacity by the end of 2015. The other major leaders in this sector are Germany, Japan, US, India and other major European countries. 

The Solar Power plants use one of the two technologies:

• Photovoltaic (PV) systems use solar panels, either on rooftops or in ground-mounted solar farms, converting sunlight directly into electric power.
• Concentrated solar power (CSP, also known as "concentrated solar thermal") plants use solar thermal energy to make steam, that is thereafter converted into electricity by a turbine.

The CSP plants comprise of a very small share of the Global Solar Energy with 4.4 GW at the end of 2014. It is lead mainly by US and Spain. 

Another variant of Solar Energy is the Solar Thermal Heating and Cooling systems. Solar thermal technologies contribute significantly to hot water production in many countries, and increasingly to space heating and cooling as well as industrial processes. By end of 2014, the total Solar Water Heating collectors global capacity stood at 406 Gigawatts

China was again the primary driver of demand for new solar thermal capacity in 2014. However, following several years of rapid growth, China’s market was down nearly 18% relative to 2013.

So here I conclude the Part I of this discussion where China has just leapfrogged all other countries in its mission for Renewable energy in the last decade mainly due to its large scale, mass production and dedicated government plans. There are several other success stories like Norway, Germany  and the mission for RE100 and we will talk about them in some detail in Part II of this series. So stay tuned..