Quick and Easy Guide to Renewable Energy
Energy is a fundamental requirement of life – it is needed to provide heat, light and cooking facilities. Modern life is also reliant on the provision of energy for communication, transport and industrial processes.
Today energy is required at the flick of a switch or the turn of a key, it is required to be instantaneous and continuous. Energy provision affects every part of modern day life and it is vital for the successful running of a healthy economy and for ensuring a healthy population.
What is Renewable Energy?
Currently most of the world’s energy comes from fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas. There are finite resources of these fossil fuels that are rapidly decreasing. The exploitation of new reserves is increasingly more difficult, both technically and economically.
The burning of fossil fuels for energy generation results in the emission of harmful gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and sulphur dioxide. These gases have been acknowledged by the worlds leading scientists as key contributors to global climate change.
Fossil fuels are global commodities and the economics relating to the supply and generation of fuel and power nationally can be severely influenced by global events. Energy affects global politics that in turn impacts on national and regional policy and strategy.
To combat the effects of climate change and to ensure the stability of energy supplies renewable energy technologies are becoming more important at a local, national and global level.
Renewable forms of energy will not run out. Most renewable energy comes from the heat and light of the sun (wind, solar, wave, biomass). Other renewable energy comes from the gravitational pull of the moon and the sun on the oceans (tidal) and from the hot rocks found deep within the earth (geothermal). The primary advantage of using renewable energy is that it does not produce the gases that are associated with climate change
The principal renewable energy technologies are:
- Solar PV – Using energy from the sun to generate electricity
- Solar Hot Water – Using energy from the sun to produce hot water
- Ground source heat pumps – Using the heat within the ground
- Small Scale Wind – Harnessing the power of the wind to produce electricity
- Small Scale Hydro – Harnessing the power of falling water to produce electricity
- Biomass – Using organic matter to produce energy
There are funding schemes available to assist with the installation of renewable energy technologies.
