Renewable resources for electric power: Prospects and challenges

Abstract

Three factors are driving the expansion of renewables in the industrialised countries of the western world: the threat of climate change, dramatic shortages and price increases in conventional energy sources such as oil and gas, and the political situation in many of the remaining extracting nations, which puts ongoing security of supply for the importing nations in doubt. Energy providers, and increasingly politicians, in Germany are therefore looking to expand the use of renewables, and particularly the very promising area of offshore wind farms. Great advances in the performance, availability, and economic efficiency of these methods of power generation lead us to expect that in just a few years' time wind power will be profitable enough to justify the enormous investments it requires. These will, however, have to be supported by society as a whole, to trigger an injection of development funds into the required technologies. © 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.