Renewable energy (also called green energy) is energy made from renewable natural resources that are replenished on a human timescale. The most widely used renewable energy types are solar energy, wind power, and hydropower. Bioenergy and geothermal power are also significant in some countries. Some also consider nuclear power a renewable power source, although this is controversial, as nuclear energy requires mining uranium, a nonrenewable resource. Renewable energy installations can be large or small and are suited for both urban and rural areas. Renewable energy is often deployed together with further electrification. This has several benefits: electricity can move heat and vehicles efficiently and is clean at the point of consumption. Variable renewable energy sources are those that have a fluctuating nature, such as wind power and solar power. In contrast, controllable renewable energy sources include dammed hydroelectricity, bioenergy, or geothermal power.
Renewable energy systems have rapidly become more efficient and cheaper over the past 30 years. A large majority of worldwide newly installed electricity capacity is now renewable. Renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind power, have seen significant cost reductions over the past decade, making them more competitive with traditional fossil fuels. In most countries, photovoltaic solar or onshore wind are the cheapest new-build electricity. From 2011 to 2021, renewable energy grew from 20% to 28% of global electricity supply. Power from the sun and wind accounted for most of this increase, growing from a combined 2% to 10%. Use of fossil energy shrank from 68% to 62%. In 2024, renewables accounted for over 30% of global electricity generation and are projected to reach over 45% by 2030. Many countries already have renewables contributing more than 20% of their total energy supply, with some generating over half or even all their electricity from renewable sources.
The main motivation to use renewable energy instead of fossil fuels is to slow and eventually stop climate change, which is mostly caused by their greenhouse gas emissions. In general, renewable energy sources pollute much less than fossil fuels. The International Energy Agency estimates that to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, 90% of global electricity will need to be generated by renewables. Renewables also cause much less air pollution than fossil fuels, improving public health, and are less noisy.
The deployment of renewable energy still faces obstacles, especially fossil fuel subsidies, lobbying by incumbent power providers, and local opposition to the use of land for renewable installations. Like all mining, the extraction of minerals required for many renewable energy technologies also results in environmental damage. In addition, although most renewable energy sources are sustainable, some are not. (Full article...)
Renewable energy in Australia is based mainly on biomass, solar, wind, and hydro generation technologies. Over a third of all electricity generated in Australia is now from renewable sources, a proportion that is increasing in line with global trends .
"People do not want electricity or oil ... but rather comfortable rooms, light, vehicular motion, food, tables, and other real things."
"There exists today a body of energy technologies that have certain specific features in common and that offer great technical, economic, and political attractions ... 'soft' energy technologies [which are] flexible, resilient, sustainable, and benign. They rely on renewable energy flows that are always there whether we use them of not, such as sun and wind and vegetation."
"Soft technologies' matching of energy quality to end-use needs virtually eliminates the costs and losses of secondary energy conversion, [and] the appropriate scale of soft technologies can virtually eliminate the costs and losses of energy distribution."
– Amory Lovins, Soft Energy Paths, 1977, pp. 38–40.
Jeremy Leggett (born 16 March 1954) is a British social entrepreneur and writer. He founded and was a board director of Solarcentury from 1997 to 2020, an international solar solutions company, and founded and was chair of SolarAid, a charity funded with 5% of Solarcentury's annual profits that helps solar-lighting entrepreneurs get started in Africa (2006–2020). SolarAid owns a retail brand SunnyMoney that was for a time Africa's top-seller of solar lighting, having sold well over a million solar lights, all profits recycled to the cause of eradicating the kerosene lantern from Africa. He founded and is CEO of Highlands Rewilding, a pioneering nature-recovery company, from 2020 to present.
Leggett is winner of the first Hillary Laureate for International Leadership in Climate Change (2009), a Gothenburg Prize (2015), the first non-Dutch winner of a Royal Dutch Honorary Sustainability Award (2016) and the Blue Planet Prize (2025). He was once described in the Observer as "Britain’s most respected green energy boss." He is the author of five books: "The Winning of The Carbon War", an account of what he sees as the "turnaround years" in the dawn of the global energy transition, 2013–2015, with an update edition spanning 2016–2017, "The Energy of Nations" (2013), "The Solar Century" (2009), "Half Gone" (2005) and "The Carbon War" (2000). He writes occasional articles for national media and has lectured on business and society at the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford (UK) and St Gallen (Switzerland). His vision is of a renaissance in civilisation aided or even triggered by renewable energy and nature restoration, and its intrinsic social benefits. (Full article...)
... that the Exelon Pavilions, a set of four solar energy generating structures in Millennium Park of Chicago, provide sufficient energy to power the equivalent of 14 star-rated energy-efficient houses in Chicago ? In addition to producing energy, three of the four pavilions provide access to the park's below ground parking garages and the fourth serves as the park's welcoming center. Exelon, a company that generates the electricity transmitted by its subsidiary Commonwealth Edison, donated approximately $5–6 million for the Pavilions.
Image 4The Hoover Dam in the United States is a large conventional dammed-hydro facility, with an installed capacity of 2,080 MW. (from Hydroelectricity)
Image 5Krafla Geothermal Station in northeast Iceland (from Geothermal energy)
Image 6Parabolic dish produces steam for cooking, in Auroville, India. (from Solar energy)
Image 7Museum Hydroelectric power plant "Under the Town" in Užice, Serbia, built in 1900 (from Hydroelectricity)
Image 8World electricity production by source, 2000-2024 (from Wind power)
Image 9Merowe Dam in Sudan. Hydroelectric power stations that use dams submerge large areas of land due to the requirement of a reservoir. These changes to land color or albedo, alongside certain projects that concurrently submerge rainforests, can in these specific cases result in the global warming impact, or equivalent life-cycle greenhouse gases of hydroelectricity projects, to potentially exceed that of coal power stations. (from Hydroelectricity)
Image 12A turbine blade convoy passing through Edenfield in the U.K. (2008). Even longer 2-piece blades are now manufactured, and then assembled on-site to reduce difficulties in transportation. (from Wind power)
Image 14Electricity generation at Wairakei, New Zealand (from Geothermal energy)
Image 15The Warwick Castle water-powered generator house, used for the generation of electricity for the castle from 1894 until 1940 (from Hydroelectricity)
Image 16Share of electricity production from hydropower, 2024 (from Hydroelectricity)
Image 17Wind turbines such as these, in Cumbria, England, have been opposed for a number of reasons, including aesthetics, by some sectors of the population. (from Wind power)
Image 20Geothermal power station in the Philippines (from Geothermal energy)
Image 21Acceptance of wind and solar facilities in one's community is stronger among U.S. Democrats (blue), while acceptance of nuclear power plants is stronger among U.S. Republicans (red). (from Wind power)
Image 23Greenhouses like these in the Westland municipality of the Netherlands grow vegetables, fruits and flowers. (from Solar energy)
Image 24Energy from wind, sunlight or other renewable energy is converted to potential energy for storage in devices such as electric batteries or higher-elevation water reservoirs. The stored potential energy is later converted to electricity that is added to the power grid, even when the original energy source is not available. (from Wind power)
Image 50Concentrated solar panels are getting a power boost. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) will be testing a new concentrated solar power system – one that can help natural gas power plants reduce their fuel usage by up to 20 percent.[needs update] (from Solar energy)
Image 51Electricity generation at Poihipi, New Zealand (from Geothermal energy)
Image 53Enhanced geothermal system 1:Reservoir 2:Pump house 3:Heat exchanger 4:Turbine hall 5:Production well 6:Injection well 7:Hot water to district heating 8:Porous sediments 9:Observation well 10:Crystalline bedrock (from Geothermal energy)
Image 55Distribution of wind speed (red) and energy (blue) for all of 2002 at the Lee Ranch facility in Colorado. The histogram shows measured data, while the curve is the Rayleigh model distribution for the same average wind speed. (from Wind power)
Image 56Seasonal cycle of capacity factors for wind and photovoltaics in Europe under idealized assumptions. The figure illustrates the balancing effects of wind and solar energy at the seasonal scale (Kaspar et al., 2019). (from Wind power)
Image 57Typical components of a wind turbine (gearbox, rotor shaft and brake assembly) being lifted into position (from Wind power)
Image 58Global map of wind power density potential (from Wind power)
Image 59Installed geothermal energy capacity, 2023 (from Geothermal energy)
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![Image 50Concentrated solar panels are getting a power boost. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) will be testing a new concentrated solar power system – one that can help natural gas power plants reduce their fuel usage by up to 20 percent.[needs update] (from Solar energy)](view_image.php?q=Portal:Renewable_energy&sq=starlink&lang=en&file=File:Photo_of_the_Week-_Boosting_Solar_Technology_(8722948189).jpg)
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