High oil prices, environmental crises, and increasing energy demand have been the driving forces for rapid growth of renewable energy worldwide. All these forces have been weakened by COVID-19. The economic growth has reversed toward a worldwide recession. Consequently, the energy demand has reduced, leading to a surplus in the oil production and reduced price. In addition, with the slowdown of economy and transportation the global warming and air pollution may lose their positive reasoning for RE. What would be the impact of these all on RE?
" The Stone Age Did Not End Because the World Ran Out of Stones, and the Oil Age Will Not End Because We Run Out of Oil" :)
The reduction of oil prices may indicate a positive impact on non-renewable energy compared with renewable energy. This is not correct and it emphasizes the importance of using renewable energy for many reasons. As oil prices have crashed to around US$20 and keep fluctuating, this makes the dependence on oil as a source of income non-reliable. From the other hand, the non-oil production countries found oil prices encouraging. However, these countries already invest in renewable energy technologies, since it is more reliable, the cost is going down and stable, environmentally friendly. For that, I believe we are reached a renewable and sustainable energy century. In conclusion, the reduction of oil prices will not make our best option. I advise to look to the following papers:
Hilal M S Al-Mamaari, Hussein A Kazem and Miqdam T Chaichan, “Climate Change: the Game Changer in the Gulf Cooperation Council Region”, Elsevier-Renewable and Sustainable Energy Review (RSER, ISSN: 1364-0321), USA, September 2017, Vol. 76, pp. 555-576.
Link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1364032117303635
Hilal M S Al-Mamaari, Hussein A Kazem and Miqdam T Chaichan, “The impact of oil price fluctuations on common renewable energies in GCC countries”, Elsevier-Renewable and Sustainable Energy Review (RSER, ISSN: 1364-0321), USA, 2017, Vol. 75, pp. 989-1007.
Link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1364032116308243
Hilal M S Al-Maamary, Hussein A Kazem and Miqdam T Chaichan, “Changing the Energy Profile of the GCC States: A Review”, International Journal of Applied Engineering Research, ISSN 0973-4562, India, Vol. 11 No.3 (2016) pp. 1980-1988.
Link: https://www.ripublication.com/ijaer16/ijaerv11n3_66.pdf
Due to low oil price, I think countries will try to increase their oil reserve cpacity as much as they can. So we can expect low oil price will continue for a while even after the pandemic. However, I don't think this condition would last for a long time. RE is about to build energy infrastructure that creates resilience for good. Regards.
COVID-19 event is certainly a short-term event and will not have much impact on the long-term trend of renewable energy growth. It should be noted that there may always be challenges along the way for such huge processes.
Energy planners in large economies always consider such challenges beforehand.
It is to early to predict which way the oil price evolves as a consequence of the Corona pandemic. It depends on the economic fallout on the various countries. I am very skeptical about models and plans in the drawer or on PC. Many countries despite such plans and studies available to them were caught on the wrong foot .
Harald G. Dill
The pollution with greenhouse gases will get reduced during this period of time when corona rages, in certain parts of the globe more in other less due to the diminishing land-, air and sea traffic.
NASA will measure a temperature decrease because it is the only way for the agency to survive for the long run
People and media have to make another big fuss in the aftermaths
And the climate doesn´ give a damn of all this.
H.G.Dill
post srciptum: .... and governments, authorities, politicians etc. will not learn anything either as it is shown by the "Risk analysis of the pandemic virus "Modi-SARS" commissioned by the German Government in 2012 and issued in 2013 as open file report 17/12051. Everybody who wanted to know how this virus spreads could have become aware of this. It was a script for the current pandemic. You find there everything what we will face with. If you want the full report let me know this.
The negative impacts of COVID-19 on RE development, as presented above, is just one aspect of the issue. Another aspect, which may be regarded more important in the development of RE, is an improvement of RE penetration. As COVID-19 reduces the total electricity consumption, the reduction of course is imposed on non-RE sources, thus improving the penetration coefficient of RE. There are other positive impacts on RE.
Maybe someone will be interested to read this article "Energy and Emissions after Covid-19: A First Cut"
https://www.csis.org/analysis/energy-and-emissions-after-covid-19-first-cut?utm_source=telegram.me&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=energetika-i-emissii-posle-covid-19ne
" The Stone Age Did Not End Because the World Ran Out of Stones, and the Oil Age Will Not End Because We Run Out of Oil" :)
Why Europe’s Green Deal Still Matters
https://www.csis.org/analysis/why-europes-green-deal-still-matters?utm_source=telegram.me&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=covid-19-i-evropeyskiy-zelenyy-kursv
European Green Deal must be central to a resilient recovery after Covid-19
https://climatechangenews.com/2020/04/09/european-green-deal-must-central-resilient-recovery-covid-19/
Thank you dear Vladimir Prakht for the references. Just as a very short summary of the first one (for friends who do not have time to read it) that I quickly got through, argues that low oil prices may result in less investment and thus causes production shortage and consequently high oil prices in the future. On the other hand, the economic packages of governments to tackle Corona impacts may help RE, as they help other sectors. And as the third argument: the incentives for RE may be increased by the governments upon its decline. It finally concludes that the future is not clear.
Appreciate if Vladimir himself, or somebody else, reflects a short summary of the second Ref.
The coronavirus crisis is several months or a year. The decline in production will be in all sectors, but this is a short-term decline. The goals stated in the European Green Deal are set before 2050. In my opinion, if our goals and values are true, then we should not abandon them because of temporary difficulties.
If we really understand the message that covid19 brings in terms of environmental impacts caused by human civilization, the task of energy saving must be established as a human culture. Renewable energy must be something that is here to stay and surely society, in general, has understood it this way. Surely the cost of ERs exceeds the cost of oil, but the industrial society and the scientific society will continue to develop clean energy.
Even during the shelter at home, it is necessary to save energy, to reduce the impacts of the use of public services 24 hours, if it is in your interest to save energy at home, please consider the following preprint.
Preprint REVIEW OF ENERGY SAVING STRATEGIES AND CONSIDERATIONS AT THE...
I agree with Vladimir Prakht . Apart from the demerits of oil on the environment, Coronavirus is just a short period, impacting the whole world and this is the reason for low need of oil. However, when the world returns to the normal stable situation, there will be still a great interest in green energy.
In short term, the social and economic consequences of lock-downs, may prevail as it is happening now. This would have mid-term impacts on many sectors including RE. However, RE may experience flourishing in long run, not only due to an economic recovery, but also due to a solid experience of the current days in its favor: a much better air quality can be seen if pollutant industry like conventional power plants and fossil fueled transportation reduce, as mentioned by Harald G. Dill. The experience consolidates the mentality of energy saving and RE, or their importance in human culture as referred by Edwin Francisco Forero-García above.
Dear Professor,
I think that the developed countries will try to use the benefits of different types of energy sources just for themselves and they will not want to share their real experiences with other countries. all of the mentioned works will be done by the developed countries to be ahead in the future competition and industrial competition. They will try to buy the fossil sources of developing countries cheaply and develop their renewable resources simultaneously. it is very bad news for the developing countries.
Coronavirus crisis an 'excellent opportunity' to speed global energy transition: Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA)
https://www.rechargenews.com/transition/coronavirus-crisis-an-excellent-opportunity-to-speed-global-energy-transition-birol/2-1-774042
Deployment of renewable energy in the form solar especially would help to make electric power available considering the lockdown order worldwide.Solar radiation provides both heat energy for drying and light energy for sight/conversion to electricity. Solar electricity requires no fuel as opposed to gas fired means of electricity
Please check the following link in the "chart5" section :
https://www.frontier-economics.com/uk/en/news-and-articles/articles/article-i7214-how-is-covid-19-impacting-the-uk-electricity-system/
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