Clean Energy Transition

The 2020 Factbook showcases the impact of sustainable energy over the last decade and highlights findings for 2019 that follow the macro trends of the 2010s: • Renewable energy became the cheapest new generation source in many U.S. power markets. The U.S. has over 2 times more renewable power generating capacity today than a decade ago. Solar capacity in 2019 was 80 times greater than what it was at the end of 2009. • Energy efficiency choices have proliferated, with federal programs helping high-efficiency appliances reach mass markets and state codes bolstering building efficiency. The economy grew every year in the past decade and energy use fell in five of the ten years. U.S. energy productivity (GDP/energy consumption) improved 18% between 2010 and 2019, benefiting businesses and households. • Natural gas became the primary source of U.S. power generation and shifted the scales in the global market. Between 2010 and 2019 domestic natural gas production jumped 50%, and natural gas went from providing 24% of the nation's electricity to 38%. The U.S. increased its export capacity to exceed its import capacity, building stronger trade relationships around the world. In 2019, the U.S. exported more gas than it imported.

NREL maintains a chart of the highest confirmed conversion efficiencies for research cells for a range of photovoltaic technologies, plotted from 1976 to the present.

Wind turbine makers and project developers will continue to introduce new technologies and cut costs, but “constraints on technology innovation are on the horizon,” at least for onshore wind farms, WoodMac said Wednesday, highlighting key trends for the industry.

Wood Mackenzie expects 350 megawatts of floating offshore wind in operation by 2022 at various demonstration projects, and up to 10 gigawatts by 2030 with the right policy frameworks in place. Europe currently has a total of less than 50 megawatts of floating wind installed.

With an installed capacity of 117 GW at the end of 2018, the EU further lost ground in the worldwide market.

According to a recent 100% RES scenario of the Energy Watch Group, the EU needs to increase its PV capacity from 117 GW to over 630 GW by 2025 and 1.94 TW by 2050 in order to cover 100% of its electricity needs by renewable energy.

Global solar installations will continue double-digit growth rates into the new decade, according to the new 2020 Global Photovoltaic (PV) Demand Forecast by IHS Markit (NYSE: INFO), a world leader in critical information, analytics, and solutions. The newly installed PV capacity in 2020 will reach 142 gigawatts (GW), up 14% YoY.

Passive cooling was enabled by application of perforated aluminium fins fixed on the back side surface of the PV panel.

can increase power yield of the PV system by 5% on at maximum

the CO2 emissions intensity of electricity supply across an average day could vary by more than a factor of 7

"Interesting, but it will never catch on" and "What a waste of time." They had just seen the first ever Mouse, Hypertext, WP, video conferencing, and the Internet (Arpanet).

With 2020 just over the horizon, WRI’s 2020 NDC tracker reveals that 68 countries have indicated they will enhance the ambition or action of their NDCs next year -- but they represent only 8% of global emissions.

Researchers at the Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology (LUT) in Finland and Energy Watch Group (EWG) have completed a 4½ year study that examined how to meet the goals of the Paris climate accords without such measures as carbon capture and geoengineering. Their conclusion? Run everything on electricity and generate all of that electricity using renewables, primarily solar.

A team headed by Stanford’s Mark Z. Jacobson outlined plans for 139 nations to transition to 100 percent clean, renewable energy by the year 2050.

The shift would also allow the countries to avoid the 3 percent they now spend in their Gross Domestic Products to address the costs of air pollution — mainly in the form of higher health care spending.

The plan maps each country and the energy sources it would rely on to reach the 100 percent renewable goal. Water-bound and geologically active Iceland would get 28 percent of its power from hydroelectric sources and nearly 23 percent from geothermal. Parched and wide-open Australia would get nearly 45 percent of its power from wind farms. Poland would get nearly two-thirds of its power from the wind.