Lack of Innovation in material science is preventing renewable energy from making it big.

Because traditional power plants have shaped the environment for electrical energy production and distribution it is cheaper to make them, cheaper to run them and easier to distribute power generated from them.

On the other hand renewable energy resources shine in the areas that have precisely been untouched by the grid. Some dry desert, a high up mountain ,or some forgotten coast somewhere.

In addition to the extremely high manufacturing cost of equipment, there is the added cost of installation ,transmission and generation only to compete with the massive advantage that the grid + power plants offer. This advantage is not going away anytime soon.

The only way renewable energy could gain traction is if

Renewable energy could create new markets for its consumption

Renewable energy industry could research and come up with better materials to reduce the cost of infrastructure.

Or some traditional power plant owner might invest in renewable energy as a means to augment their capacity

Or maybe all of the above.

With the right set of tools different from those of traditional power sources, renewable energy is actually weather and time independent.

Or to put it differently the conditions that provide renewable energy are essential for life on earth. Because the sun will always shine on deserts , wind will always blow along the coasts all through the year until massive geological changes take place.

Wind energy works in places where sunlight is sparse.

[In colder regions wind is far more potent energy resource than solar. It is reliable not just along the coast but also inland. If the problem of magnets and electrical circuits can be solved, wind could replace traditional energy sources easily.]

The point here is that it's not the external circumstances that are holding renewable energy back. It's a combination of economic and technological factors.Traditional sources of energy are just too good at this point in time and a big reason for that is the infrastructure required to make them successful is already in place whereas for renewables this is still a work in progress.

There are many challenges with respect to renewable energy resources both in terms of generation and in transmission. Many hurdles exist in terms of storage as well, but availability of 24x7x365 energy is not one of them if we look in the right places.

For solar a common complaint often made is what happens when there is no sun: at night or on cloudy days. This argument is only true for distributed solar installation ,roof top solar etc. In the desert there is hardly ever a cloudy day and sun shines throughout the year and there is plenty of opportunity to store energy for use during the night.

If, a big if at the moment, enough solar power generators could be manufactured (panels ,concentrated solar) etc a fraction of total desert land could power the entire planet easily.

Similarly wind is always flowing along coastal areas at a steady pace all through the year.if enough wind turbines could be manufactured along with the associated electronics, magnets etc to generate electrical energy only the coasts could power the entire planet.

The big challenge with renewable energy is material manufacturing, not the availability of input energy. Traditional electrical energy plants( coal ,gas ,diesel ,nuclear ) have had major advantages.

Unlike renewables they could be made location independent, they are already supported by around 100 years of electrification drive so transmission lines and grid are available to them. They have set the standard that is now followed by all consumers and producers of electricity.

It will take time and resources to match them.

Comments

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Notes by Akshat Jiwan Sharma

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