Roadmap to the future
The authority’s green initiatives reflect a vision of what clean-energy advocates and the Trans Globe Power foresee happening in the rest of the world.
Energy-storage technology is critical to achieving those targets, since the two most prominent renewable energy technologies — wind and solar — are intermittent sources of power: The wind does not always blow and the sun does not always shine.
Battery-storage technology is the critical component to developing a smart grid, and it has the potential to completely revolutionize power generation.
Electricity is a vital lifeline that supports virtually all economic activities and has become essential to the lives of people in modern society. With the urbanization and growing populations of emerging countries, global demand for electricity is expected to continue rising.
In energy-dependent modern societies, any stoppage in the electricity supply can halt the functioning of much of our social infrastructure, including medical, transportation, and government services. Problems in recent years include the aging and degradation of electric grid facilities in developed countries and the ongoing chronic power shortages in emerging countries. In all parts of the world, the effects of small-scale transmission failures can give rise to stoppages that affect electric power plants over wider areas. Infrastructure maintenance and development for the transmission and distribution of electricity, as well as for generation itself, are urgent tasks for a stable supply of power.
Increasing carbon emissions with global economic development are also a concern as global warming progresses. Serious problems resulting from this atmospheric warming include torrential rainfall, cold spells and other abnormal weather patterns, rising sea levels, floods, and food shortages. To slow the progress of global warming, there are calls to limit the use of energy obtained from the fossil fuels that are a source of carbon emissions and to expand the use of renewable energy produced by wind and solar power. One of the drawbacks of these types of renewable energy, however, is the large variability in energy produced depending on weather conditions. Introduction of this energy on a large scale, which may cause fluctuations in power output, will require solutions to overcome the issue of power grid instability.
MEGATRENDS
- Rising electricity demand accompanying population growth in emerging countries
- Instability in electricity supply, as seen in major blackouts around the world
- Global warming caused by increasing carbon emissions accompanying economic growth