Slow rollout is undermining global efforts to fight the change, lead researcher says
Renewable energies across Europeoccupied a significant market share: last year 40% of British electricity was generated by wind and sun. But while there has been a worldwide boom in green energy in recent years, many of the new wind and solar farms have been built by independent manufacturers.
According to new research, largeutilities, including many state and city enterprises, are much slower to switch to green energy. More than 3,000 utilities around the world took part in the study. Scientists have used machine learning techniques to analyze their performance over the past two decades.
Research has shown that only 10% of companiesexpanded the production of electricity from renewable sources. Of this small fraction, which spent more on renewables, many continued to invest in fossil fuels, albeit at lower rates. The vast majority of companies, according to the author of the study, were simply "sitting on the fence."
“If you look at all the utilitiesbusinesses and what prevails in their behavior, you will see that they do little with fossil fuels and renewable energies, ”said Galina Alova of the Smith School of Entrepreneurship and the Environment at the University of Oxford. “So they can do something with other fuels, such as hydropower or nuclear power, but they are not switching to renewable energy sources or increasing fossil fuel capacity.”
The author says that many of these typesutilities are state-owned and may have invested in their energy portfolios many years ago. However, the overall conclusion from the analysis is that utilities are “hindering” the global shift to renewables.
Inertia in the electric power industry is one of the main reasons for the slow transition, Alova emphasizes.
But reports about energy companies do not always reflect the complexity of their investments.
Renewable Energy and Natural Gasoften go hand in hand. Companies often choose to do both at the same time. So perhaps it's only through media reports that we get a glimpse of renewable energy investing, but less coverage of ongoing gas investment. So it's not a green light. It's just that these parallel investments in gas dilute the transition to renewable energy sources. This is the key question.
Galina Alova from the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford
Read also
The Andromeda halo is approaching our galaxy. We tell you why it is important
Symptoms of coronavirus in children. What you should pay attention to?
It turned out that made the Mayan civilization leave their cities