Help fight against Climate Change

Renewable energy is already helping to combat climate change. It’s time to put our feet on the accelerator!

Renewable energy is one of the most effective weapons we have in the fight against climate change, and there is every reason we will triumph. Furthermore, renewable technologies are increasingly saving customers money as they crucially eliminate fossil fuel emissions.

Affordability is also no longer becoming a factor as prices for renewable energy are falling rapidly with wind and solar energy products demonstrating huge growth and significant cost improvements in the last decade at least. Prices of sustainable energy are as competitive as fossil fuels around the country; this means it is more economical and affordable than running inefficient and dirty fossil fuel-fired power plants.

The expense of generating electricity from wind and solar has declined by 60% and 80%, respectively, since 2009. Those cost trends are expected to continue, and coupled with the recent extension of tax credits for renewable energy, wind and solar growth is predicted to soar over the next few years, with capacity projected to double by 2022.

Change is already here – it’s happening!

Up until recently, there has been much concern about adapting the electric grid with further integration of renewable energy. Previously there were huge costs involved in maintaining backup generation and transmission in case they’re called upon to keep lights on etc when inflexible resources like coal and nuclear plants unexpectedly decommission and go offline has frequently been ignored. There is a huge cry and demand for flexible resources that bring predictability that fossil and nuclear plants lack. Renewable energy is variable but we can mostly predict when it is likely to be reliably sunny or windy. Fossil or nuclear plants often have to shut for long periods so maintenance can be carried out.

Much is said about the need to adapt the electric grid to the variability associated with integrating renewable energy into our electricity mix. Until recently, the huge costs of maintaining backup generation and transmission in case they’re needed to keep the lights on when large, inflexible resources like coal and nuclear plants suddenly and unexpectedly go offline has too often been ignored. Grid managers and planners are now appropriately as concerned about the need for flexibility and predictability, assets that large fossil and nuclear plants lack. Renewable energy production is variable but predictable (we mostly know when it will be sunny or windy). However, it can be impossible to predict when large fossil or nuclear plant will have to shut down for critical maintenance.

As we move forward, there are a number of grid planning practices and technologies that will help facilitate the transition to increasing amounts of renewable energy. For example, as more and more cars on the road become electric, those vehicles can help store electricity and manage peak demand so that supply and demand can be better managed. Demand response (compensating customers for altering their electricity use at specific periods) and time of use electricity pricing can provide similar support. The government is considering how to design policies and market structures that support a modern, low-carbon grid. Planning for the future must be carried out in tandem with the promotion of strong renewables growth in the present.

We follow Greta…

Morrison Sustainable Energy is following the latest quest of Greta Thunberg as she continues to tell world leaders to put an end to fossil fuel ‘madness’.

Greta travels through North America on her way to a UN climate conference in Chile. To understand the impact of climate change, she stops at three key locations that reveal how the planet is changing.

In the Canadian Rockies, she learns how a small change in temperature has allowed an insect infestation to kill nearly half the trees in one of its most famous national parks. She visits a glacier that is melting faster than models predict and discovers the cause is partly due to soot from forest fires falling on it.

In California, she sees at first hand the destruction these fires create when she visits Paradise, a town at the centre of a deadly fire in 2018.

When the UN climate conference is suddenly moved to Madrid, Greta finds herself on the wrong side of the Atlantic Ocean and decides to sail back, braving life-threatening storms, to make her speech calling for immediate action on climate change. On the BBC.