Future Trends

Facts relating to the strong  future growth trends in the Renewable Energy sector

• The worldwide renewable energy capacity grew at an annual rates of 10 – 60% between 2004 – 2009, with accelerated growth for wind power and other renewable technologies. This means that growth in 2009 was relative to that of the previous four years in total.
• a recording of 60% of the annual average growth for grid connected PV between 2004 – 2009 – making this the fastest of all renewable technologies with a 100 fold increase from year 2000.
• In 2009 one quarter of all global power capacity came from all renewable sources delivering 18% of the global electricity supply.
• Investment in renewable power capacity is continuing to grow despite challenges posed by the global financial crisis, lower oil prices and slow progress with climate change policy.
• For the second year in a row more money was invested in new renewable power capacity than in new fossil fuel capacity, which accounts for nearly 50% of total generating capacity added to the world’s grids over this period.
• The rapid adoption beyond the industrialised world means that today more than half of the existing renewable power capacity is in developing countries.

 (REN, 2010)

In short:  The future trend for the Renewable Energy sector is expected to grow exponentially.

Background and history on Renewable Energy

The term renewable energy encompasses a number of sources and technologies at different stages of commercialisation. The international Energy Agency (IEA) defines this field in terms of three generations of renewable energies reaching back over 100 years.

1. First generation technologies merged from the industrial revolution at the end of the 19^th century and include hydro-power, biomass combustion and geothermal power & heat, which are currently quite widely used and well established.
2. Second generation technologies include solar heating & cooling, wind power, modern forms of bio-energy and solar photovoltaic’s (PV), which are increasingly entering markets currently following results in research, development & demonstrations (RD&D) and investments since the 1980s.
3. Third generation technologies are still under development depending heavily on long-term investment commitments in RD&D where the public sector has an important role to play and include advanced biomass gasification, bio-refinery technologies, concentrating solar thermal power, hot-dry-rock geothermal power, ocean energy and nanotechnology.