Abstract
Since 2007, large and unexpected declines in generation costs for renewable energy systems, particularly solar but also wind, combined with policy measures designed to limit greenhouse gas emissions, have created a paradigm shift in energy systems. Variable renewable energy now dominates total investment in electricity power generation systems. This dominance of variable renewable energy in investment has thrust the systems integration task of matching electricity supply with demand to center stage, presenting new challenges for energy policy and planning as well as for the institutional organization of power systems. Despite these challenges, there is ample reason to believe that variable renewables will attain very high levels of penetration into energy systems, particularly in regions well endowed with solar and wind potential. Similar to their success with mobile phone telephony, many developing countries have a significant opportunity to leapfrog directly to more advanced energy technologies that are low cost, reliable, environmentally more benign, and well suited to serving dispersed rural populations.
Highlights
For more than a century, economic growth and development have been principally powered by fossil fuels
With (a) the failure of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies to mature, (b) the reductions in the costs of variable renewable energy (VRE), and (c) the large global investment streams into VRE that have followed, the systems integration challenge has taken on much greater prominence
Looking forward, the 2018 Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), the most recently released electricity plan for South Africa, expects VRE to account for 21% of total electricity production by 2030, up from 14% and 10% in the 2016 and 2010 IRPs, respectively (DOE 2011, 2016, 2018)
Summary
For more than a century, economic growth and development have been principally powered by fossil fuels. Developing countries are, in many ways, well positioned to benefit from these technological advances They are frequently well endowed with naturally distributed renewable energy sources, notably sunshine; they frequently lack significant legacy energy systems; they are likely to experience rapid increases in energy demand; and they are often characterized by relatively large and dispersed rural populations with limited or no access to electricity or other modern forms of energy. These cost declines were uniformly unanticipated by principal energy forecasters.
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