Renewable Resources for Electric Power: Prospects and Challenges

The Brundtland Report in 1987 adjoined sustainable development to the political agenda. The subsequent United Nations‘ conferences on climate change have identified measures to address the challenge of global warming.

Shifting our energy systems from its predominantly fossil fuel basis toward renewable resources for electricity production appears a viable approach to reduce pollution and resource depletion. Technological advancements are continuously bringing down electric power production cost from renewable resources, facilitating market entry for an augmenting portfolio of decentralized power technologies and creating business opportunities for new power producers

. In their book, Renewable Resources for Electric Power: Prospects and Challenges, Edinger and Kaul assess the role of photovoltaics, wind power, microhydro, and hydrogen fuel cells in a liberalized market environment and enlighten historical and technological development as well as economic aspects of introducing these concepts to the electricity system. Examples on distributed power generation and the effects of economies of scale as well as the assets of modular systems are outlined and advocated for preparing the pathway toward a sustainable electric power system.

Renewable resources imply both business opportunities for new market players as well as future-oriented energy strategies for national governments concerned with long-term energy security, climate benign economic development, and socially acceptable technologies.

Raphael Edinger and Sanjay Kaul; Renewable Resources for Electric Power: Prospects and Challenges. Quorum Books, Westport, CT, USA (2000), 168pp.