American meteorologists point to June 1 as the start of the hurricane season and this year 2023 the forecasts point to high uncertainty due to the coincidence on the one hand of a natural phenomenon, El Niño, and on the other the high temperatures in the Atlantic. The latter situation is caused by climate change accelerated by human activities such as the combustion of oil, gas and coal.
When talking about climate change, it is inevitable to talk about the necessary energy as the cause of many of the problems with the climate, but the door to hope is open. With the technological development of renewable sources, a path of change is wide open that can avoid or mitigate the worst of the increase in temperatures and keep energy needs covered.
“We have a responsibility to lead the way in the transformation to a clean, renewable and sustainable energy future to combat the climate crisis while transitioning our workforce to the growing clean energy jobs of the future.”
Pedro Azagra
“The science is clear, to avoid the worst impacts of climate change emissions need to be reduced almost by half by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050,” states the United Nations. To achieve these objectives, according to this international organization, it is necessary to limit dependence on fossil fuels, which still account for 80% of global energy production.
Pedro Azagra, CEO of Avangrid, a subsidiary of Iberdrola, explains that we have the technologies that allow us to have all the electricity necessary for our daily lives “without polluting and without causing the greenhouse effect that has an impact on the climate. “We have a responsibility to lead the transformation towards a clean, renewable and sustainable energy future to combat the climate crisis while facilitating the transition of our workforce to the growing jobs of the future in the clean energy sector.”
A leader in sustainable energy and the third largest wind operator in the US, Avangrid owns and operates more than 8 GW of installed wind and solar capacity nationwide and, with Vineyard Wind 1, the company is developing the first offshore commercial wind farm. large scale of the country. Azagra stresses that, although it is very important to tell people that we can have more electricity, “we also have to ensure that it is produced in a responsible way that limits the impact on our communities and does not harm our environment and marine life for the communities. generations to come.”
The adoption of these technologies and these sources of electricity generation at a time when more energy is consumed than ever is key and urgent in this decade according to the March 2023 report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to prevent damage that progresses and may be irreversible.
An existential threat
In Maine, Laney Brown talks about the smoke coming from the Canadian forest fires this spring, which have filtered the sunlight with a veil of smoke and brought pollutants to various places in the US, from the state where she lives to New York. Brown, vice president of sustainability at Avangrid, believes that the situation is an existential threat and recalls that FEMA, the organization that helps resolve climate risks after storms and other events, “is facing annual events that cost billions of dollars.” and before they occurred every five years.”
For this expert, sustainability is using the resources that nature has in a way that maintains the life of the planet. And not only with regard to the sources but also the materials used in this sector since, both in solar and wind, as well as storage batteries, the extraction of critical minerals is required. However, according to the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE), the life cycle emissions of the necessary technologies are substantially lower than fossil fuel alternatives even with carbon capture. In addition, Brown explains that there are turbine and battery recycling programs. In the latter case “there is a large secondary market and it is a perfect example of a circular economy.”
Sustainability is also economic. “If you think about the floods, fires and in general the insecurity that has been generated around energy, this has a tremendous cost,” explains Brown.
Energy security is something that José Zayas, executive vice president of policies and programs at ACORE, is clear about. “Consider the war in Ukraine and how many problems it has created for natural gas, a sector that has seen its prices rise for consumers. In the case of renewables, the fuel, in essence, is always free, and is always your own, so you have energy independence and security from a source that does not run out.”
And in this sense, the United States “is blessed with many renewable resources,” says Zayas to explain that the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of August 2022—which includes spending and tax credits valued at $369,000 million—, and other legislation “have highlighted the importance of the sector and the awareness of the opportunity that is critical for a sector that already generates 23% of the country’s energy.”
Renewables surpass coal-generated electricity
According to US Energy Information AdministrationIn 2022, electricity generation from renewable sources – wind, solar, water, biomass and geothermal – was higher for the first time than that generated by coal. Already in 2021 it surpassed nuclear energy as it also did last year. The largest source of electricity (39% of the total) corresponds to natural gas.
Wind and solar sources have been the bases for the growth of this clean sector. Official forecasts assume that the capacity of renewable energies will grow by 380% between 2022 and 2050 while the generation capacity from fossil sources (coal and natural gas) will grow by 11% in that same period of time. The projection comes supported by two fundamental pillars. The cost and reliability.
Avangrid explains that the technological evolution in renewables has been very rapid in both senses and with regard to the first he assures that “not 15 years ago, but now I can say that it is not only the cleanest but the most competitive in terms of costs.” Ocean installations are starting to drive costs down further.
From ACORE, Zayas explained that in terms of billing users, not all markets in the country are the same and each one manages its electrical system differently “but the reason why more and more renewable capacity is being installed is because it has competitive costs. . In some places this translates into maintaining prices, without raising them, and in others reducing them. Furthermore, it manifests itself in other opportunities, such as the economies in which it is established.” In this sense, in 2021 this industry had created more than 539,000 jobs, to which those created with the impetus of the IRA will be added.
The reliability test
Regarding reliability, Avangrid explains that technical evolution has made this energy source safe, something that has been demonstrated in recent storms and which have proven its resilience on par with the rest of the energies. We must remember that in catastrophe situations, fossil fuels have not been infallible. During the February 2021 Uri storm in Texas, when there was a power distribution failure, three-quarters of the problems came from natural gas and coal plants. In Storm Elliot in December 2022, 91% of the electricity outages in the Atlantic area were due to fossil fuel plants.
Azagra recognizes that renewables are an intermittent source of energy, sometimes the sun does not come out, sometimes the winds calm down, “but the improvement in battery storage systems will help us with this intermittency and have a more stable profile ”. Zayas, the vice president of ACORE, adds that geographical diversity to maintain balances and an improvement in interconnections, which is the great pending issue, will definitively establish the reliability of the renewable system.
Avangrid is positioned to guarantee service because for two decades the company has been on both sides of this industry, production and transmission and distribution. “Transmission was seen as an important part of the future, a part of the solution in the revolution posed by renewables.” ACORE considers that pairing renewables with an expansion of transmissions It will be very beneficial for the safety of production because when the sun does not shine in one place, the wind will shine in another.
Technological evolution, lower prices, the environmental need to accelerate change and the push from the Government are reasons to see an ever-growing future for renewables. The Administration says it and Azagra believes it, who says that in 20 years the green solution will be the most important in the generation mix. “There will probably be support from other sources, but we will have the technology and the capacity to ensure that energy generation is, above all, renewable and it is good because we remember that we do this not only for ourselves, but for the new generations. We have to leave a better world than the one we found ourselves in.”
CREDITS
Design and layout: Mónica Juárez Martín and Alfredo García
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