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such as coal, oil, and natural gas still remain the world's primary energy sources, even as Renewable energy are increasing in use.]]An energy transition (or energy system transformation) is a major structural change to energy supply and consumption in an energy system. Currently, a transition to sustainable energy is underway to limit climate change. Most of the sustainable energy is renewable energy. Therefore, another term for energy transition is renewable energy transition. The current transition aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from energy quickly and sustainably, mostly by phasing-down fossil fuels and changing as many processes as possible to operate on Low-carbon power. A previous energy transition perhaps took place during the Industrial Revolution from 1760 onwards, from wood and other biomass to coal, followed by Petroleum and later natural gas.
Over three-quarters of the Energy mix are met by burning fossil fuels, but this usage emits greenhouse gases. Energy production and consumption are responsible for most human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. To meet the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, emissions must be reduced as soon as possible and reach net-zero by mid-century. Since the late 2010s, the renewable energy transition has also been driven by the rapidly falling cost of both Solar power and wind power. After 2024, clean energy is cheaper than ever. Global solar module prices fell 35 percent to less than 9 cents/kWh. EV batteries saw their best price decline in seven years.Another benefit of the energy transition is its potential to reduce the health and environmental impacts of the energy industry.
Heating of buildings is being Electrification, with being the most efficient technology by far. To improve the flexibility of , the installation of energy storage and are vital to enable the use of variable, weather-dependent technologies. However fossil-fuel subsidies are slowing the energy transition.
The IPCC does not define energy transition in the glossary of its Sixth Assessment Report but it does define transition as: "The process of changing from one state or condition to another in a given period of time. Transition can occur in individuals, firms, cities, regions and nations, and can be based on incremental or transformative change."IPCC, 2022: Annex I: Glossary van. In IPCC, 2022: Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change P.R.. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK and New York, NY, USA. doi: 10.1017/9781009157926.020
From the 1990s, debates on energy transition have increasingly taken climate change mitigation into account. Parties to the agreement committed "to limit Climate change to "well below 2 °C, preferably 1.5 °C compared to pre-industrial levels". This requires a rapid energy transition with a downshift of fossil fuel production to stay within the carbon budget. In this context, the term energy transition encompasses a reorientation of energy policy. This could imply a shift from centralized to distributed generation. It also includes attempts to replace overproduction and avoidable energy consumption with energy-saving measures and increased efficiency.Louis Boisgibault, Fahad Al Kabbani (2020): Energy Transition in Metropolises, Rural Areas and Deserts. Wiley - ISTE. (Energy series) .
The historical transitions from locally supplied wood, water and wind energies to globally supplied fossil and nuclear fuels has induced growth in end-use demand through the rapid expansion of engineering research, education and standardisation. The mechanisms for the whole-systems changes include new discipline in Transition Engineering amongst all engineering professions, entrepreneurs, researchers and educators.
However it has been argued that the term is a mere slogan and that rather than transitioning, as of 2024, use of all forms of primary energy has increased.
The chronologically first discourse was most broadly described by Vaclav Smil. It underlines the change in the energy mix of countries and the global economy. By looking at data in percentages of the primary energy source used in a given context, it paints a picture of the world's energy systems as having changed significantly over time, going from biomass to coal, to oil, and now a mix of mostly coal, oil and natural gas. Until the 1950s, the economic mechanism behind energy systems was local rather than global.
The second discourse was most broadly described by Jean-Baptiste Fressoz. It emphasises that the term "energy transition" was first used by politicians, not historians, to describe a goal to achieve in the future – not as a concept to analyse past trends. When looking at the sheer amount of energy being used by humankind, the picture is one of ever-increasing consumption of all the main energy sources available to humankind. For instance, the increased use of coal in the 19th century did not replace wood consumption, indeed more wood was burned. Another example is the deployment of passenger cars in the 20th century. This evolution triggered an increase in both oil consumption (to drive the car) and coal consumption (to make the steel needed for the car). In other words, according to this approach, humankind never performed a single energy transition in its history but performed several energy additions.
Contemporary energy transitions differ in terms of motivation and objectives, drivers and governance. As development progressed, different national systems became more and more integrated becoming the large, international systems seen today. Historical changes of energy systems have been extensively studied. While historical energy changes were generally protracted affairs, unfolding over many decades, this does not necessarily hold true for the present energy transition, which is unfolding under very different policy and technological conditions.
For current energy systems, many lessons can be learned from history. The need for large amounts of firewood in early industrial processes in combination with prohibitive costs for overland transportation led to a scarcity of accessible (e.g. affordable) wood, and eighteenth century glass-works "operated like a forest clearing enterprise". When Britain had to resort to coal after largely having run out of wood, the resulting fuel crisis triggered a chain of events that two centuries later culminated in the Industrial Revolution. Similarly, increased use of peat and coal were vital elements paving the way for the Dutch Golden Age, roughly spanning the entire 17th century. Another example where resource depletion triggered technological innovation and a shift to new energy sources is 19th century whaling: whale oil eventually became replaced by kerosene and other petroleum-derived products. To speed up the energy transition it is also conceivable that there will be government buyouts or bailouts of coal mining regions.
Despite the knowledge about the risks of climate change and the increasing number of climate policies adopted since the 1980s, however, energy transitions have not accelerated towards decarbonization beyond historical trends and remain far off track in achieving climate targets.
The deployment of renewable energy can generate co-benefits of climate change mitigation: positive socio-economic effects on employment, industrial development, health and energy access. Depending on the country and the deployment scenario, replacing coal power plants can more than double the number of jobs per average MW capacity. The energy transition could create many , for example in Africa. The costs for retraining workers for the renewable energy industry was found to be trivial for both coal in the U.S. and oil sands in Canada. The latter of which would only demand 2–6% of federal, provincial, and territorial oil and gas subsidies for a single year to be reallocated to provide oil and gas workers with a new career of approximately equivalent pay. In non-electrified rural areas, the deployment of solar mini-grids can significantly improve electricity access.
Employment opportunities by the green transition are associated with the use of renewable energy sources or building activity for infrastructure improvements and renovations.
Centralised facilities such as Oil refinery and thermal power plants can be put out of action by air attack, whereas although solar can be attacked decentralised power such as solar and wind may be less vulnerable. Solar and batteries reduces risky fuel convoys. However large hydropower plants are vulnerable. Some say that nuclear power plants are unlikely to be military targets, but others conclude that civil NPPs in war zones can be weaponised and exploited by the hostile forces not only for impeding energy supplies (and thus shattering the public morale of the adversary) but also for blackmailing and coercing the decisionmakers of the attacked state and their international allies with a vision of man-made nuclear disaster.
Many climate change mitigation pathways envision three main aspects of a low-carbon energy system:
By 2022, hydroelectricity is the largest source of renewable electricity in the world, providing 16% of the world's total electricity in 2019. However, because of its heavy dependence on geography and the generally high environmental and social impact of hydroelectric power plants, the growth potential of this technology is limited. Wind and solar power are considered more scalable, but still require vast quantities of land and materials. They have higher potential for growth. These sources have grown nearly exponentially in recent decades thanks to rapidly decreasing costs. In 2019, wind power supplied 5.3% worldwide electricity while solar power supplied 2.6%. While production from most types of hydropower plants can be actively controlled, production from wind and solar power depends on the weather. must be extended and adjusted to avoid wastage. Dammed hydropower is a dispatchable source, while solar and wind are variable renewable energy sources. These sources require dispatchable backup generation or energy storage to provide continuous and reliable electricity. For this reason, storage technologies also play a key role in the renewable energy transition. As of 2020, the largest scale storage technology is pumped storage hydroelectricity, accounting for the great majority of energy storage capacity installed worldwide. Other important forms of energy storage are electric batteries and power to gas.
The "Electricity Grids and Secure Energy Transitions" report by the IEA emphasizes the necessity of increasing grid investments to over $600 billion annually by 2030, up from $300 billion, to accommodate the integration of renewable energy. By 2040, the grid must expand by more than 80 million kilometers to manage renewable sources, which are projected to account for over 80% of the global Film capacitor increase over the next two decades. Failure to enhance grid infrastructure timely could lead to an additional 58 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide emissions by 2050, significantly risking a 2°C global temperature rise.IEA (2023), Electricity Grids and Secure Energy Transitions, IEA, Paris https://www.iea.org/reports/electricity-grids-and-secure-energy-transitions, Licence: CC BY 4.0
With highly variable prices, electricity storage and grid extension become more competitive. Researchers have found that "costs for accommodating the integration of variable renewable energy sources in electricity systems are expected to be modest until 2030". Furthermore, "it will be more challenging to supply the entire energy system with renewable energy".
Fast fluctuations increase with a high integration of wind and solar energy. They can be addressed by operating reserves. Large-scale batteries can react within seconds and are increasingly used to keep the electricity grid stable.
It is easier to sustainably produce electricity than it is to sustainably produce liquid fuels. Therefore, adoption of is a way to make transport more sustainable. While electric vehicle technology is relatively mature in road transport, electric shipping and aviation are still early in their development, hence sustainable liquid fuels may have a larger role to play in these sectors.
A key sustainable solution to heating is electrification (, or the less efficient electric heater). The IEA estimates that heat pumps currently provide only 5% of space and water heating requirements globally, but could provide over 90%. Use of ground source heat pumps not only reduces total annual energy loads associated with heating and cooling, it also flattens the electric demand curve by eliminating the extreme summer peak electric supply requirements. However, heat pumps and resistive heating alone will not be sufficient for the electrification of industrial heat. This because in several processes higher temperatures are required which cannot be achieved with these types of equipment. For example, for the production of ethylene via steam cracking, temperatures as high as 900 °C are required. Hence, drastically new processes are required. Nevertheless, power-to-heat is expected to be the first step in the electrification of the chemical industry with an expected large-scale implementation by 2025.
Historically, the fossil fuel lobby has been highly successful in limiting regulations. From 1988 to 2005, ExxonMobil, one of the largest oil companies in the world, spent nearly $16 million in anti-climate change lobbying and providing misleading information about climate change to the general public. The fossil fuel industry acquires significant support through the existing banking and investment structure. The concept that the industry should no longer be financially supported has led to the social movement known as divestment. Divestment is defined as the removal of investment capital from stocks, bonds or funds in oil, coal and gas companies for both moral and financial reasons.
Banks, investing firms, governments, universities, institutions and businesses are all being challenged with this new moral argument against their existing investments in the fossil fuel industry and many, such as Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the University of California, New York City and more, have begun making the shift to more sustainable, eco-friendly investments.
In 2024 the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) projected that by 2050, over half of the world's energy will be carried by electricity and over three-quarters of the global energy mix will be from renewables. Although overtaken by both biomass and clean hydrogen, fossil fuels were still projected to supply 12% of energy. The transition is expected to reshape geopolitical power by reducing reliance on long-distance fossil fuel trade and enhancing the importance of regional energy markets.
Use of local energy sources may stabilise and stimulate some local economies, create opportunities for energy trade between communities, states and regions, and increase energy security.
Coal mining is economically important in some regions, and a transition to renewables would decrease its viability and could have severe impacts on the communities that rely on this business. Not only do these communities face energy poverty already, but they also face economic collapse when the coal mining businesses move elsewhere or disappear altogether. This broken system perpetuates the poverty and vulnerability that decreases the adaptive capacity of coal mining communities. Potential mitigation could include expanding the program base for vulnerable communities to assist with new training programs, opportunities for economic development and subsidies to assist with the transition.
Increasing energy prices resulting from an energy transition may negatively impact developing countries including Vietnam and Indonesia.
Increased mining for lithium, cobalt, nickel, copper, and other critical minerals needed for expansion of renewable energy infrastructure has created increased environmental conflict and environmental justice issues for some communities.
Recently, an energy crisis is upon the nations of Europe as a result of dependence on Russia's natural gas, which was cut off during the Russia-Ukraine war. This goes to show that humanity is still heavily dependent on fossil fuel energy sources and care should be taken to have a smooth transition, less energy-shortage shocks cripple the very efforts to effectively energise the transition.
Incomplete regulations on clean energy uptake and concerns about electricity shortages have been identified as key barriers to the energy transition in coal-dependent, fast developing economies such as Vietnam.
Researchers found that social sentiments held by U.S. residents have proven to be barriers for energy transitions. The U.S. Department of Energy plans for wind energy to provide 35% of the electrical grid by 2050 are bringing wind energy projects closer to communities. Sentiments for wind energy opposition in local communities include sound annoyance, perceived health effects, and the reduction of scenic landscapes and views.
Anticipated economic aspects are believed to be the most influential variable to perceptions of proposed wind energy developments. Economic barriers to acceptance of renewable energy include local tax increases, increase in electricity rates, decrease in tourism, property value impacts and distributional inequality. However, rural economic development, creation of jobs, investment opportunities, and lower electricity costs stand as possible benefits.
More recently, consumption of coal has declined relative to low carbon energy. Coal dropped from about 29% of the global total primary energy consumption in 2015 to 27% in 2017, and non-hydro renewables were up to about 4% from 2%.
Hydro electric power plants are a major part of India's energy infrastructure since the days of its independence in 1947. Former prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru called them the " temples of modern India" and believed them to be key drivers of modernity and industrialism for the nascent republic. Notable examples of hydro power stations include the 2400 MW Tehri Dam, the 1960 MW Koyna hydroelectric project and the 1670 MW Srisailam Dam. Recently, India has given due importance to emerging renewable technologies like solar power plants and wind farms. They house 3 of the world's top 5 solar farms, including world's largest 2255 MW Bhadla Solar Park in and world's second-largest solar park of 2000 MW Pavgada Solar Park and 100 MW Kurnool Ultra mega solar park.
While there has been positive change, air pollution from coal still kills many people and India has to cut down its reliance on traditional coal based power production as it still accounts for around 50% of its energy production. India is also moving towards its goal for electrification of the automotive industry, aiming to have at least 30% Electric vehicle ownership among private vehicles by 2030.
Public demand for improved local environmental quality and government's aims to promote a green economy are found to be key drivers in Vietnam.
Governments ambition to attract international support for green growth initiatives and public demand for a clean environment have been found to be drivers of the energy transition in developing countries, such as Vietnam. Thanks to a relatively more conducive investment environment, Vietnam is poised to a faster energy transition than some other ASEAN members
A survey found that digitally advanced companies put more money into energy-saving strategies. In the European Union, 59% of companies that have made investments in both basic and advanced technologies have also invested in energy efficiency measures, compared to only 50% of US firms in the same category. Overall, there is a significant disparity between businesses' digital profiles and investments in energy efficiency.
The policy has been embraced by the German federal government and has resulted in a huge expansion of renewables, particularly wind power. Germany's share of renewables has increased from around 5% in 1999 to 17% in 2010, reaching close to the OECD average of 18% usage of renewables. In 2022 Germany has a share of 46,2 % and surpassed the OECD average. A large driver for this increase in the shares of renewables energy are decreases in cost of capital. Germany boasts some of the lowest cost of capitals for renewable solar and wind onshore energy worldwide. In 2021 the International Renewable Energy Agency reported capital costs of around 1.1% and 2.4% for solar and wind onshore. This constitutes a significant decrease from previous numbers in the early 2000s, where capital costs hovered around 5.1% and 4.5% respectively. This decrease in capital costs was influenced by a variety of economic and political drivers. Following the 2008 financial crisis, Germany eased the refinancing regulations on banks by giving out cheap loans with low interest rates in order to stimulate the economy again.
During this period, the industry around renewable energies also started to experience learning effects in manufacturing, project organisation as well as financing thanks to rising investment and order volumes. This coupled with various forms of subsidies contributed to a large reduction of the capital cost and the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) for solar and onshore wind power. As the technologies have matured and become integral parts of the existing sociotechnical systems it is to be expected that in the future, experience effects and general interest rates will be key determinants for the cost-competitiveness of these technologies.
Producers have been guaranteed a fixed feed-in tariff for 20 years, guaranteeing a fixed income. Energy co-operatives have been created, and efforts were made to decentralize control and profits. The large energy companies have a disproportionately small share of the renewables market. Nuclear power stations were closed, and the existing nine stations will close earlier than necessary, in 2022.
The reduction of reliance on nuclear stations has had the consequence of increased reliance on fossil fuels. One factor that has inhibited efficient employment of new renewable energy has been the lack of an accompanying investment in power infrastructure to bring the power to market. It is believed 8300 km of power lines must be built or upgraded.
Different Länder have varying attitudes to the construction of new power lines. Industry has had their rates frozen and so the increased costs of the Energiewende have been passed on to consumers, who have had rising electricity bills. Germans in 2013 had some of the highest electricity costs in Europe. Nonetheless, for the first time in more than ten years, electricity prices for household customers fell at the beginning of 2015.
In order to meet the net zero target energy networks must be strengthened. Electricity is only a part of energy in the United Kingdom, so natural gas used for industrial and residential heat and petroleum used for transport in the United Kingdom must also be replaced by either electricity or another form of low-carbon energy, such as sustainable bioenergy crops or green hydrogen.
Although the need for the energy transition is not disputed by any major political party, in 2020 there is debate about how much of the funding to try and escape the COVID-19 recession should be spent on the transition, and how many jobs could be created, for example in improving energy efficiency in British housing. Some believe that due to post-covid government debt that funding for the transition will be insufficient. Brexit may significantly affect the energy transition, but this is unclear . The government is urging UK business to sponsor the climate change conference in 2021, possibly including energy companies but only if they have a credible short-term plan for the energy transition.
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