Renewable energy sources
Renewable energy is energy which comes from natural resources such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, and geothermal heat, which are all renewable i.e. are naturally replenished.
Many of these energy sources require quite complex technology in order to deliver energy in a usable form and most of these technologies are still undergoing significant development to increase their 'conversion' efficiency and to reduce their costs.
For example, whilst Solar Photovoltaic (PV) energy i.e. the direct conversion of sunlight into electricity has been understood as a physical process for more than 170 years, it is perhaps only in the last 10 years that its use has become 'industrialised' on a significant scale; with global cumulative PV installations surpassing 40GW of installed capacity at the end of 2010.
Similarly wind power has been used for, arguably, thousands of years but interest in it as a mainstream source of energy has accelerated enormously in recent years and is of particular interest to the UK since we have access to a very high percentage of the available wind resource in Europe.
Global wind power installations increased by more than 35GW in 2010, bringing total installed capacity up to more than 194GW, a 22.5% increase on the installed capacity at the end of 2009. Also, for the first time, more than half of all new wind power was added outside of the traditional geographies of Europe and North America, mainly driven by the continuing boom in China which accounted for nearly half of all of the installations at 16.5GW. China alone now has more than 42GW of wind power installed.
At a more 'domestic' level however it is important to understand that many of these renewable energy approaches can be used by all of us to heat and power our homes more economically and very importantly to contribute to a continuing decrease in our carbon footprint.
The links below therefore aim to provide a basic explanation of some of the more common technologies that can be used by us all - right now.
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