''Deploying Renewables 2011: Best and Future Policy Practice'' is a 2011 book by the

International Energy Agency The International Energy Agency (IEA) is a Paris-based autonomous intergovernmental organization, established in 1974, that provides policy recommendations, analysis and data on the global energy sector. The 31 member countries and 13 associatio ...

. The book analyses the recent successes in

renewable energy Renewable energy (also called green energy) is energy made from renewable resource, renewable natural resources that are replenished on a human lifetime, human timescale. The most widely used renewable energy types are solar energy, wind pow ...

, which now accounts for almost a fifth of all electricity produced worldwide, and addresses how countries can best capitalize on that growth to realise a

sustainable energy Energy system, Energy is sustainability, sustainable if it "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." Definitions of sustainable energy usually look at its effects on the e ...

future. The book says that

renewable energy commercialization Renewable energy commercialization involves the deployment of three generations of renewable energy technologies dating back more than 100 years. First-generation technologies, which are already mature and economically competitive, include ...

must be stepped up, especially given the world’s increasing appetite for energy and the need to meet this demand more efficiently and with low-carbon energy sources.

Wind power Wind power is the use of wind energy to generate useful work. Historically, wind power was used by sails, windmills and windpumps, but today it is mostly used to generate electricity. This article deals only with wind power for electricity ge ...

and other

sources offer great potential to address issues of

energy security Energy security is the association between national security and the availability of natural resources for energy consumption (as opposed to household energy insecurity). Access to cheaper energy has become essential to the functioning of modern ...

and

sustainability Sustainability is a social goal for people to co-exist on Earth over a long period of time. Definitions of this term are disputed and have varied with literature, context, and time. Sustainability usually has three dimensions (or pillars): env ...

. This analysis updates and expands ''Deploying Renewables: Principles for Effective Policies'', published by the IEA in 2008, in light of events and trends in the last five years. It also "extends the analysis to a wider range of countries beyond the

OECD The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; , OCDE) is an international organization, intergovernmental organization with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and international trade, wor ...

and

BRICS BRICS is an intergovernmental organization comprising ten countriesBrazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates. The idea of a BRICS-like group can be traced back to Russian foreign ...

countries, focussing on 56 countries representative of each world region".

Key findings

Renewable energy commercialisation has been rapid. Growth rates are in line with those required for a sustainable energy future:

• "The RE electricity sector, for example, has grown by 17.8% over the last five years (2005-09) and currently provides 19.3% of total power generation in the world."

• " Hydro power is still the major source of renewable electricity (83.8% of RE generation, corresponding to about 16% of total generation in 2009), and the absolute growth in hydro generation over the last five years has been equivalent to that of all the other RE electricity technologies, mainly because of developments in China. Hydro will continue to be an important technology for years to come and must not be excluded from policy considerations."

• "The other newer RE electricity technologies have also grown rapidly, by an impressive 73.6% between 2005 and 2009, a compound average growth rate ( CAGR) of 14.8%.
Wind Wind is the natural movement of atmosphere of Earth, air or other gases relative to a planetary surface, planet's surface. Winds occur on a range of scales, from thunderstorm flows lasting tens of minutes, to local breezes generated by heatin ...
has grown most rapidly in absolute terms and has overtaken
bioenergy Bioenergy is a type of renewable energy that is derived from plants and animal waste. The Biomass (energy), biomass that is used as input materials consists of recently living (but now dead) organisms, mainly plants. Thus, Fossil fuel, fossil fu ...
. Solar PV has grown at a growth rate of 50.2% (CAGR), and installed capacity reached about 40 GW by the end of 2010."

• "Progress in RE electricity penetration was focused in the OECD and in Brazil, India and China. The OECD was the only region where the deployment of less mature technologies (such as solar PV,
offshore wind Offshore wind power or offshore wind energy is the Electricity generation, generation of electricity through wind farms in bodies of water, usually at sea. There are higher wind speeds offshore than on land, so offshore farms generate more elect ...
) reached a significant scale, with capacities in the order of GWs."

• "Renewable heat grew by 5.9% between 2005 and 2009. Although the use of biomass is still the dominant technology (and includes the use of “traditional” biomass with low efficiency for heating and cooking), growth in
solar heating A solar thermal collector collects heat by Absorption (optics), absorbing sunlight. The term "solar collector" commonly refers to a device for solar hot water panel, solar hot water heating, but may refer to large power generating installations ...
, and to a lesser extent geothermal heating technologies, has been strong, with an overall growth rate of nearly 12% between 2005 and 2009. Growth was particularly driven by rapid increases in solar heating in China."

• "The production and use of
biofuel Biofuel is a fuel that is produced over a short time span from Biomass (energy), biomass, rather than by the very slow natural processes involved in the formation of fossil fuels such as oil. Biofuel can be produced from plants or from agricu ...
s have been growing rapidly, and in 2009 they provided 53.7 Mtoe, equivalent to some 3% of road transport fuels (or 2% of all transport fuels). The biofuels sector has been growing very rapidly (26% CAGR in 2005-09). Biofuels production and consumption are still concentrated in Brazil, the United States and in the European Union. The main centres for
ethanol Ethanol (also called ethyl alcohol, grain alcohol, drinking alcohol, or simply alcohol) is an organic compound with the chemical formula . It is an Alcohol (chemistry), alcohol, with its formula also written as , or EtOH, where Et is the ps ...
production and consumption are the United States and Brazil, while Europe produces and consumes mainly
biodiesel Biodiesel is a renewable biofuel, a form of diesel fuel, derived from biological sources like vegetable oils, animal fats, or recycled greases, and consisting of long-chain fatty acid esters. It is typically made from fats. The roots of bi ...
. The remaining markets in other regions and the rest of the world account for only 6% of total production and for 3.3% of consumption. Trade in biofuels plays a limited, yet increasingly important role."

References

{{reflist 2011 non-fiction books Books about energy issues Renewable energy economics Renewable energy commercialization Sustainability books International Energy Agency

Key findings

See also

References