Renewable Energy Development Falling Far Short of Potential
Renewable energy development is falling far short of its potential and governments need to do much more to remove non-economic and other barriers, a major new report from the International Energy Agency says.
The IEA report, Deploying Renewables: Principles for Effective Policies, looks at the “realisable potential” for renewables, based on a long-term view of the technical potential adjusted to take account of unavoidable medium-term constraints on the rate of change, such as maximum market growth rates and planning constraints.
For most countries, the additional realisable potential to 2020 far outstrips the achieved deployment of renewables to date.
The aggregate additional potential to 2020 for renewable electricity (RES-E) in OECD countries and BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China) amounts to 6 271 TWh. This is equivalent to 41% of 2005 total electricity generation and represents almost 2.5 times the current RES-E generation. In absolute terms, China has the largest additional potential, followed by the EU-27, the United States, India, Russia, Canada and Brazil. Overall, BRICS account for 47% of the additional realisable potential among those countries analysed.
The ratio of additional potential to achieved generation in 2005 is even larger for renewable heat (RES-H).
For solar thermal and geothermal heat the additional potential is almost thirty times the achieved heat production from these sources.
In the case of renewable liquid transport fuels (RES-T), the estimated additional realisable potential of first-generation biofuels is more than five times the current production. This estimate is based on the conservative assumption that a maximum of 10% of current arable land would be used for energy crop cultivation in 2020, with a lower share (3.5-8.5%) assumed for the emerging economies (BRICS) due
to potentially stronger competition with food production and environmental pressures.
The report recommends:
- The removal of non-economic barriers, such as administrative hurdles, obstacles to grid access, poor electricity market design, lack of information and training, and the tackling of social acceptance issues (“not in my backyard” – NIMBY), with a view to overcome them – in order to improve market and policy functioning;
- A predictable and transparent support framework to attract investments;
- The introduction of transitional incentives, decreasing over time, to foster and monitor technological innovation and move technologies quickly towards market competitiveness;
- The development and implementation of appropriate incentives guaranteeing a specific level of support to different technologies based on their degree of technology maturity, in order to exploit the significant potential of the large basket of renewable energy technologies over time; and
- The due consideration of the impact of large-scale penetration of renewable energy technologies on the overall energy system, especially in liberalised energy markets, with regard to overall cost efficiency and system reliability.
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