Electrification with renewables: driving the transformation of energy services
The world has made the transition from one major form of energy to another several times – from animal power and biomass to burning coal, and then to the increasing use of oil and gas. The replacement of those fuels with renewables marks the next historic shift. Yet to ensure sustainability and global climate stability, this latest energy transformation needs to happen much faster. Countries around the world need a vast expansion of renewables, smarter and more flexible electricity grids, and huge increases in the numbers of vehicles and other products and processes that run on electricity. Those three elements – combined in a “RE-Electrification” strategy – will be crucial in shaping the world’s new, renewable-dominated energy system. The present publication offers a preview of findings from a forthcoming scoping study, “Electrification with Renewables: Driving the transformation of energy services”. This first-of-its-kind analysis was undertaken jointly by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and the world’s largest utility, the State Grid Corporation of China.
