Global 100% renewable energy possible by 2030

Most of the world can meet 100% of electricity demand with a combination of solar, wind, and batteries (SWB) by 2030.

That’s according to a Tony Seba-led RethinkX report 100% Solar, Wind, and Batteries is Just the Beginning which states the energy sector is on the cusp of its fastest, deepest, most profound disruption in more than a century and will have a big impact on transport.

Seba featured in EVs and Beyond in 2017 when he was a keynote speaker at the APEC electric vehicle and hydrogen technology workshop in Wellington.

Converging technologies (solar, photovoltaic power, wind power, and lithium-ion battery energy storage) are driving the energy disruption, the report’s executive summary says.

“Our analysis shows that 100% clean electricity from the combination of solar, wind, and batteries (SWB) is both physically possible and economically affordable across the entire continental United States as well as the overwhelming majority of other populated regions of the world by 2030,” it says.

“Adoption of SWB is growing exponentially worldwide and disruption is now inevitable because by 2030 they will offer the cheapest electricity option for most regions.

“Coal, gas, and nuclear power assets will become stranded during the 2020s, and no new investment in these technologies is rational from this point forward.”

The report says SWB will transform the world’s energy system in fundamental ways – “the new system that emerges will be much larger than the existing one we know today and will have a completely different architecture that operates in unfamiliar ways”.

RethinkX adds a much larger amount of energy will be produced – dubbed clean energy “super power” – and will be available at near-zero marginal cost throughout much of the year in nearly all populated locations.

Examples of super power applications include electrification of road transportation and heating, water desalination and treatment, waste processing and recycling, metal smelting and refining, chemical processing and manufacturing, cryptocurrency mining, cloud computing and communications, and carbon removal.

“Just as computers and the Internet slashed the marginal cost of information and opened the door to hundreds of new business models that collectively have had a transformative impact upon the global economy, so too will SWB slash the marginal cost of electricity and create a plethora of opportunities for innovation and entrepreneurship.

“What happened in the world of bits is now poised to happen in the world of electrons.”

A series of reports is planned urging decision makers to rethink the future of energy so that we can fully capture the benefits of the SWB disruption.

This report also suggests the need for a new policy and regulatory framework that breaks up utility monopolies and supports individual energy rights, and its interactions with other disruptions that will be occurring simultaneously in the transportation and food sectors during the 2020s.

“The implications of the SWB disruption of energy are profound, but in order to maximize the extraordinary benefits of the new energy system, we as individuals, communities, industries, regions, and entire nations need to make the right choices today. That process must begin with an understanding of what is possible.”

Clean energy superabundance from near-zero marginal cost SWB super power will create a new possibility space for novel business models, products, services, and markets across dozens of industries, with dramatic increases in societal capabilities and economic prosperity for regions that adopt a 100% SWB system, the report says.

“Efficiency in the new system will mean maximising output and utilisation because there is no fuel or waste to minimise.”