The 1973 oil price crisis that was driven by political embargoes sent shockwaves through the global economy. By the embargo’s end in 1974, the global oil price had risen by nearly 300%. This “first oil shock” was early demonstration of the power of political uncertainty over fuel security in a fossil-fuel dependent world.
That crisis also spurred the earliest academic interest in the idea of an energy system based solely on renewables. In a hauntingly prescient Science article in 1975, Danish Physicist Bent Sørensen decried society’s failure to harness the planet’s ample renewable resources in favour of hungrily consuming finite geological fuels.
Sørensen outlined a plan in which solar and wind power could supply Denmark’s needs in totality by 2050 – a date that then, unlike now, must have seemed comfortingly distant.
Fifty long years later, and very few countries have come close to that holy grail of 100% electrification, although the hydro rich Paraguay, Costa Rica, and Norway are notable exceptions. The dream of 100% renewables for others appears distant.
It took a while for other academics to follow Sørensen. None followed for 20 years and only 12 in the next 30 years, according to the authors of a new report from LUT University.
Now, however, hundreds of scientific studies have demonstrated pathways to a 100% renewables-based energy system, on the local, national, and global scale.
What was once a pipe dream is finally seen as an attainable reality, and a shared expectation. More than 61 countries across the world have set 100 per cent renewable targets, for at least the power sector.
In Australia, the market operator has mapped a number of different scenarios to 100 per cent renewables, or close to it, on the main grid, and the federal government expects 82 per cent renewables by 2030, mostly through wind and solar. (See chart below).
The LUT study, published in IEEE Access, reviews the state of 100% renewable energy systems research. It found the number of published studies on the topic has grown by 27% annually since 2010, representing a wealth of data that could guide the transition – with a massive boost in research since 2017.
It notes, however, that it took until 2018 for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to acknowledge 100% renewable.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has developed a global Net Zero by 2050 scenario that only leads to a renewable share of 67 per cent, and the European Union has not published any 100% renewables scenarios, although it did publish two climate neutral scenarios in 2018.
The research builds on a growing wave of academic opinion that a rapid transition to electrification might be easier – and less economically turbulent – than people think.
In a June 2022 study, researchers at Stanford University, California, US, crunched the numbers on a 100% renewable transition by 2050 across 145 countries, finding that the world could recoup its upfront costs for the switch within just six years, making all that money back on lowered energy costs.
Despite an estimated US$62 trillion needed to update energy systems in those 145 countries, the report found the switch to renewable energy would produce immediate savings of US$11 trillion per year.
According to the study, solar and wind energy emerge as the key pillars of any sustainable energy system when combined with energy efficiency measures.
“The main conclusion of the vast majority of 100% renewable energy systems studies is that such systems can power all energy in all regions of the world at low cost,” the report says.
“As such, we do not need to rely on fossil fuels in the future. In the early 2020s, the consensus has increasingly become that solar PV and wind power will dominate the future energy system and new research increasingly shows that 100% renewable energy systems are not only feasible but also cost effective.”
The authors note that recent research has also tackled major challenges to wholesale electrification, including grid congestion, energy storage, power-to-x and hydrogen-to-x, as well as the inclusion of carbon-removal strategies.
And they write that the bulk of research demonstrates that renewable energy systems can keep the grid stable at a lower cost than fossil fuels.
In short: the research is there, the action is not.
I ask Breyer how realistic a 100% renewables-based system is by or before 2050, in light of the wealth of research.
“It may not be exactly 100% renewable around 2050 in all countries, because a single remaining non-renewable facility would block that target,” he says. “But a very near to 100% target seems increasingly realistic.”
Not least, Breyer explains, because renewables are becoming increasingly attractive in the face of global crises: “Non-renewable costs can be highly volatile, as we are experiencing right now.”
And the rapid growth of this field of research has been spurned on, says Breyer, by technological advancements and changing public opinion.
“More [research] teams have joined the community over the years as a consequence of adjusted policy targets, the declining cost of renewables and the societal will for sustainable solutions,” says Breyer.
Speaking with the Helsinki Times, study co-author Auke Hoekstra emphasised the optimism behind the study.
“Many young people are depressed because they feel climate change cannot be stopped,” Hoekstra said. “We want to offer them hope by showing that our world can get all its energy needs from renewables at a price below that of fossil fuels.
“When we first proposed this, we were ridiculed, but this paper shows our ideas are now scientific mainstream”
The authors of the report caution that further research is needed. They note sizeable gaps in the research, including a relative lack of studies on how such systems can be integrated with carbon sequestration efforts, as well as a lack of research on 100% renewable systems in the ‘global south’.
