Opportunities And Challenges Of Renewable Energy Sources For Sustainable Development

Factors influencing sustainability

According to Gagnon, Leduc & Savard (2012) sustainable Engineering is the process in which systems use energy and resources in a rate that does not hurt the environment, or the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Under this, I’m going to focus on renewable energy technologies which brings about the sustainable use of renewable sources such as wind, sunshine for commercial use or home use.

Renewable energy provides energy in areas such as: electricity generation, transportation, off grid services and air and water heating/cooling. (Elbatran, Yaakob, Ahmed & Shabara, 2015). Due to an increase in population, alongside the global growing energy needs leads to the nonstop routine of  petroleum energy which leads to problems such as increase in greenhouse gas emissions, depletion of fossil fuel reserves and military and geopolitical conflict and other environmental concerns. This brings about the outstanding alternative in renewable energy sources which is the only solution to the growing challenges such as climate change and is the future to a sustainable and a green environment (Oyedepo, 2012, p.15).

The UN General Assembly planned a set of worldwide maintainable progress areas that includes 169 targets and 17 goals by the Open Working Group at the UN with the intention of tackling climate change through renewable energy. The report seeks to cover the factors affecting sustainability, the opportunities and challenges facing the renewable energy sector (Gupta, Gautam, Dhar,& Pandey., 2018, p.3-7)

The purpose of this report is to look at the opportunities and the challenges facing renewable energy and to get recommendations on how renewable energy can be improved to enhance sustainability.

Factors influencing sustainability.

1. Environmental stability – this means that natural are not destroyed nor depleted for the benefit of short-term gain.
2. Social-cultural respect – this is an accepted project based on the understanding of the local traditions and core values.
3. Community participation – this is the participation of the local community in decision making regarding a project that will affect the local community.
4. Economic Sustainability – this is whereby there is sufficient local capacity and resources to complete the object in the absence of foreign resources.

Renewable energy sources is the way to go before the world runs out of oil, coal or gas. This will lead to decentralization of energy through the development of geothermal, wind, solar and biofuels which could mean that future society will no longer be centralized. This means future society will see no need to move to the city in order to be on the grid when off grid power is working just as fine as on grid (Broman & Robert 2017, p.17-31).

Renewable energy sources are natural and cannot be depleted from the earth. Renewable energy is sustainable, environmental friendly and limitless. Although it has many advantages but it also has its shortcomings such as incoherence of power generation due to cyclical disparities.

.Fortunately, advancement in technology especially computer software and hardware has been able to handle these problems using resources appropriate to the renewable energy. The optimal use of renewable energy technology yields minimal waste, decrease environmental impacts centered on the modern and future desires of the society (Mwasilu, Justo, Kim & Jung, 2014, p.501-516).

Renewable Energy Sources

Renewable Energy Sources.

1. Hydropower – This is energy sourced from water and it primarily turns turbines and generates electricity. They include dam in-stream projects, run-of-river and dam project with reservoirs. Hydropower improves socio-economic growth of a country nevertheless it displaces a lot of people from their home and the compensation is not enough.
2. Solar energy – This technology draws on the sun’s energy directly. The technology is obtained from solar irradiance to generate electricity using photovoltaic (PV) and concentrating the solar power to meet direct lighting needs (Lewis, 2016).
3. Geothermal energy – This is energy acquired naturally from the ground of the earth as an energy source. The heat’s source is linked with physical processes occurring there and the internal structure of the planet.
4. Wind energy – It is derived from harnessing kinetic energy from moving air. Wind energy produces electricity from large turbines located either offshore or onshore.

Opportunities of renewable energy sources.

1. Energy security – Renewable sources are less traded on the market and evenly distributed around the world. Renewable sources contribute to the diversification of the portfolio a country’s energy possibilities and cut an economy’s weakness to the bill unpredictability (Epstein 2018).
2. Social and Economic development – There is a strong connection between broadening of energy intake and economic growth. This in turn creates employment when the economy grows and also improves environmental safety, education and health.
3. Energy access – With renewable energy which is spread around the world equally, access to energy is equal for people living in urban and rural areas.
4. Reduction of worldwide heat – Human activities is overburdening our air with carbon dioxide besides additional harmful discharges. These atmosphere does like a blanket concealment, ensnaring the heat. This results in harmful impacts such as rise in sea level, more frequent storms and drought. Renewable energy base in contrast, produce slight to zero global discharge. Increasing usage of renewable power sources would permit countries to substitute fossil fuel based energy sources (Dincer & Acer 2018,p.40-50)
5. Improvement of Public health – Fossil fuel plants emit air and water pollution which causes cancer, heart attacks, breathing problems, premature death and other problems. This pollution affects everyone and most of these pollution can be eradicated if countries embraced clean energy technologies such as wind which generates electricity without any pollution (Sen & Bhattacharyya, 2014,p.388-398).
6. Creation of employment opportunities – Renewable energy is more labour intensive compared with fossil fuel based sources. Wind farms need technicians for maintenance and solar farms need humans to install them. This translates to more jobs being created for each element of electricity produced from renewable base. This will have a positive economic ripple effect in that businesses in renewable supply chain will have an advantage and other local industries will profit from increased domestic incomes (Eleftheriadis, Mumovic & Greening 2017,811-825).

Challenges affecting Renewable energy sources.

1. Capital costs – This is the cost of building and installing say solar and wind farms. Renewable sources are cheap to maintain but the bulk of the expenses comes from building the technology (Grey & Tarascon, 2017,45).
2. A country’s policy and policy instrument – This affects the cost and technological innovations. This tips to market letdowns and low patronization of the renewable energy technology (Franca et al. 2017, p 155-166).
3. Market entry – Renewable energy sources have to compete with wealthier industries that benefit from existing expertise and infrastructure which make it difficult for a new player to enter.
4. Transmission – Renewable energy offer a decentralized model which has its challenges such as sitting and transmission. Sitting is whereby one needs to locate things like a solar farm or wind turbines on a piece of land which requires contracts, permits, and negotiations. Most of these renewable energy sources are new comers and they are located in areas where there is no transmission lines which requires a lot of money to set up which discourages investors and customers (Hallstedt 2017,p 251-266).
5. Unequal playing field – Renewable energy are competing against fossil fuel energy sources which are subsidized directly through government subsidies and indirectly by not punishing polluters which is unfair.
6. Reliability misconceptions – There is an argument to undermine large scale renewable energy projects that they cannot operate easily on-demand which brings about a barrier to adoption of renewable energy. Energy planners consider the narrow cost parameters instead of looking at the long-term opportunities that renewable sources offer.

Energy is a requirement for our daily life for promoting economic growth and productivity. The study brought to light about the opportunities associated with renewable energy. There are also trials that deter the growth of renewable energy. From the findings the following suggestions must be made to ensure renewable energy is sustainable:

1. Creation of guidelines and negotiations with all segments towards improving technologies in the renewable sector.
2. Increase the level of research so that the fear about renewables posing risks in the future is limited.

If these recommendations are applied, the sustainability of renewable energy sources will be taken care of (Charter & Tischner 2017, p118-138).

References.

Broman, G.I. and Robèrt, K.H., 2017. A framework for strategic sustainable development. Journal of Cleaner Production, 140, pp.17-31. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652615015930

Charter, M. and Tischner, U., 2017. Sustainable product design. In Sustainable Solutions (pp. 118-138). Routledge. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781351282475/chapters/10.4324%2F9781351282482-15

Dincer, I. and Acar, C., 2018. Potential energy solutions for better sustainability. In Exergetic, Energetic and Environmental Dimensions (pp. 3-37). https://www.nature.com/articles/nmat4834

Elbatran, A.H., Yaakob, O.B., Ahmed, Y.M. and Shabara, H.M., 2015. Operation, performance and economic analysis of low head micro-hydropower turbines for rural and remote areas: a review. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 43, pp.40-50. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032114009769

Eleftheriadis, S., Mumovic, D. and Greening, P., 2017. Life cycle energy efficiency in building structures: A review of current developments and future outlooks based on BIM capabilities. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 67, pp.811-825. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032116305226.

 Epstein, M.J., 2018. Making sustainability work: Best practices in managing and measuring corporate social, environmental and economic impacts. Routledge

 https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781351280112

França, C.L., Broman, G., Robèrt, K.H., Basile, G. and Trygg, L., 2017. An approach to business model innovation and design for strategic sustainable development. Journal of Cleaner Production, 140, pp.155-166. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652616308010

Gagnon, B., Leduc, R. and Savard, L., 2012. From a conventional to a sustainable engineering design process: different shades of sustainability. Journal of Engineering Design, 23(1), pp.49-74. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09544828.2010.516246

Grey, C.P. and Tarascon, J.M., 2017. Sustainability and in situ monitoring in battery development. Nature materials, 16(1), p.45. https://www.nature.com/articles/nmat4777

Gupta, J.G., De, S., Gautam, A., Dhar, A. and Pandey, A., 2018. Introduction to Sustainable Energy, Transportation Technologies, and Policy. In Sustainable Energy and Transportation (pp. 3-7). Springer, Singapore. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-10-7509-4_1

Hallstedt, S.I., 2017. Sustainability criteria and sustainability compliance index for decision support in product development. Journal of Cleaner production, 140, pp.251-266. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652615007982

Lewis, N.S., 2016. Research opportunities to advance solar energy utilization. Science, 351(6271), p.aad1920. https://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6271/aad1920.short

Mwasilu, F., Justo, J.J., Kim, E.K., Do, T.D. and Jung, J.W., 2014. Electric vehicles and smart grid interaction: A review on vehicle to grid and renewable energy sources integration. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 34, pp.501-516. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032114001920

Oyedepo, S.O., 2012. Energy and sustainable development in Nigeria: the way forward. Energy, Sustainability and Society, 2(1), p.15. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/2192-0567-2-15

Sen, R. and Bhattacharyya, S.C., 2014. Off-grid electricity generation with renewable energy technologies in India: An application of HOMER. Renewable Energy, 62, pp.388-398. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096014811400593X