Stanford Study Examines Renewables Roll-Out In Three Major Economies
A new Stanford study has analyzed the experiences of three separate large economies in rolling out renewable energy capacity.
The new study by Stanford energy experts analyzes the experiences of Germany, California, and Texas in ramping up renewable energy deployment, so as to determine what the United States can learn from past experiences as it attempts to ramp up renewable energy deployment under President Obama’s new clean energy policies.
Among the conclusions made in the report is the belief that renewable energy “can make a major and increasingly cost-effective contribution to alleviating climate change.”
Authored by experts from Stanford’s Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance, the report focuses on Germany — “hailed by many as a leader in renewable energy deployment and proof of concept” for other nations and large states looking to build up their own renewable energy capacity. Alongside Germany, the authors also compare the efforts of California and Texas, two US states that are leading the way for renewable energy deployment — both in and outside the country — but who are doing so “with very different policy approaches and political leadership.”
California ranks as the 8th largest economy in the world, while Texas comes in at 12th, with Germany as the 4th largest economy in the world. Together, they provide a reasonable facsimile of what it looks like when a major economy begins shifting towards renewable energy.
And, as with a number of reports released in the past week, the timing is critical, as international leaders from around the world gather in Paris for the COP21 United Nations climate negotiations.
“As policymakers from around the world gather for the climate negotiations in Paris, our report draws on the experiences of three leaders in renewable-energy deployment to shed light on some of the most prominent and controversial themes in the global renewables debate,” said Dan Reicher, executive director of the Steyer-Taylor Center.
“Our findings suggest that renewable energy has entered the mainstream and is ready to play a leading role in mitigating global climate change,” added Felix Mormann, associate professor of law at the University of Miami, faculty fellow at the Steyer-Taylor Center, and lead author of the report.
The report, A Tale of Three Markets: Comparing the Solar and Wind Deployment Experiences of California, Texas, and Germany, also reached several other conclusions based on their comparative analysis.
According to the authors of the report, “Germany’s success in deploying renewable energy at scale is due largely to favourable treatment of “soft cost” factors such as financing, permitting, installation and grid access.” This has allowed Germany to compete with Texas and California in terms of the levelized-cost of solar electricity, despite being a poor geographical location for solar — Texas and California both feature solar radiation levels twice that of Germany. Minimizing soft costs answers the concerns of one expert: “Germany happens to be the wrong place for solar, but they did it.”
Importantly, the study also reaffirmed the growing belief that an increase in renewable energy need not necessarily also result in an increase in electricity instability. The authors discovered that between 2006 and 2013, Germany tripled the amount of electricity generated from fluctuating sources such as wind and solar to 26% of the country’s energy mix, while at the same time reducing its average annual outage times for electricity customers from an already impressive 22 minutes down to only 15 minutes.
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