Data-Driven Planet #26: Deep Dive Into the World’s Energy Revolution
It’s been a busy week, despite the New Year’s celebrations. Michael Liebreich, founder of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, wrote a gloomy renewable energy poem, the meaning of which depends on the direction of reading. At the same time, The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) came out with an in-depth perspective on the global energy transition forecast that, among other things, states that to meet the Paris Agreement goal, renewable energy deployment must happen six times faster than it is today. Strikingly, it turns out that doubling renewables will save up to 15 times more than it costs!
Wind would be the largest source of power capacity with the Renewable Energy Roadmap Options, just ahead of natural gas, followed by coal.
— IRENA REmap: Roadmap for a Renewable Energy Future, 2016 Edition.
In this week’s Data-Driven Planet:
- Wind could be the largest source of power by 2030. The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) has published its annual report ‘Roadmap For a Renewable Energy Future’ providing a plan how the world can double the share of renewable energy in the energy mix by 2030, reducing global CO₂ emissions from energy use by notable 35%, while making wind the largest source of power capacity.
- India has silently become the innovation leader in adapting renewable energy technologies to its economy. The world’s largest solar farm followed by the world’s first industrial plant capturing the CO2 emissions from a coal boiler and using the CO2 to make valuable chemicals. Most importantly, it’s all been done without subsidy.
- A noteworthy warning from the Greentech Media’s forecast ‘5 Trends Utilities Need to Watch in 2017’: utilities should pay close attention to technology companies. If they don’t bother to integrate suite of different services into their leading technology platforms via APIs, they’ll soon fall behind in competition.
- A growing number of traditional offshore energy companies are expanding into the renewable energy sector. Major operators like Eni and Statoil are leading the way and as a consequence, new opportunities open up for a variety of service companies.
- Have you ever wondered how satellite data is transformed into weather forecasts? Read the fairly technical insight into a NASA project that removes the gap between research and operations, introducing new composites of satellite imagery to weather forecasters.
As a part of our continued commitment to deliver operational intelligence to our customers, each week we publish a carefully curated list of news we consider to be important. Focused on the intersection of geospatial data, earth science, energy, and IoT, the Data-Driven Planet newsletter includes the week’s most notable developments in the market. Subscribe to this Medium Channel to be notified of the next update.
