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...)
Selected article -
Solar power, also known as solar electricity, is the conversion of energy from sunlight into electricity, either directly using photovoltaics (PV) or indirectly using concentrated solar power. Solar panels use the photovoltaic effect to convert light into an electric current. Concentrated solar power systems use lenses or mirrors and solar tracking systems to focus a large area of sunlight to a hot spot, often to drive a steam turbine.
Photovoltaics (PV) were initially solely used as a source of electricity for small and medium-sized applications, from the calculator powered by a single solar cell to remote homes powered by an off-grid rooftop PV system. Commercial concentrated solar power plants were first developed in the 1980s. Since then, as the cost of solar panels has fallen, grid-connected solar PV systems' capacity and production has doubled about every three years. Three-quarters of new generation capacity is solar, with both millions of rooftop installations and gigawatt-scale photovoltaic power stations continuing to be built.
In 2024, solar power generated 6.9% (2,132 TWh) of global electricity and over 1% of primary energy, adding twice as much new electricity as coal.
Along with onshore wind power, utility-scale solar is the source with the cheapest levelised cost of electricity for new installations in most countries.
As of 2023, 33 countries generated more than a tenth of their electricity from solar, with China making up more than half of solar growth.
Almost half the solar power installed in 2022 was mounted on rooftops. (Full article...)
- "Renewable energy is proving to be commercially viable for a growing list of consumers and uses. Renewable energy technologies provide many benefits that go well beyond energy alone. More and more, renewable energies are contributing to the three pillars of sustainable development – the economy, the environment and social well-being – not only in IEA countries, but globally."
- "Renewable energy is derived from natural processes that are replenished constantly. In its various forms, it derives directly from the sun, or from heat generated deep within the earth. Included in the definition is electricity and heat generated from solar, wind, ocean, hydropower, biomass, geothermal resources, and biofuels and hydrogen derived from renewable resources."
– International Energy Agency, Renewable energy... into the mainstream, 2002.
Main topics
WikiProjects connected with renewable energy:
- Renewable energy task force
- WikiProject Energy
- WikiProject Environment
- WikiProject Technology
Prof. Stefan Krauter (2015) Stefan Krauter (born 1963 in Göppingen, West Germany) is a German engineer working in renewable energy. He specializes in photovoltaics, the direct conversion of sunlight into electricity. He is a professor at the University of Paderborn. (Full article...)
... that the first recorded instance of solar distillation was by 16th century Arab alchemists? A large-scale solar distillation project was first constructed in 1872 in Chile a mining town of Las Salinas. The plant, which had a solar collection area of 4,700 m², could produce up to 22,700 L per day and operated for 40 years. Individual still designs include single-slope, double-slope (or greenhouse type), vertical, conical, inverted absorber, multi-wick, and multiple effect. These stills can operate in passive, active, or hybrid modes. Double-slope stills are the most economical for decentralized domestic purposes, while active multiple effect units are more suitable for large-scale applications.
The following are images from various renewable energy-related articles on Wikipedia.
-
Image 1MIT's Solar House #1, built in 1939 in the US, used seasonal thermal energy storage for year-round heating. (from Solar energy)
-
Image 2Pico hydroelectricity in Mondulkiri, Cambodia (from Hydroelectricity)
-
Image 3Krafla Geothermal Station in northeast Iceland (from Geothermal energy)
-
Image 4Parabolic dish produces steam for cooking, in Auroville, India. (from Solar energy)
-
-
Image 6Concentrated 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. (from Solar energy)
-
Image 7Solar water heaters facing the Sun to maximize gain (from Solar energy)
-
Image 8Roscoe Wind Farm: an onshore wind farm in West Texas near Roscoe (from Wind power)
-
Image 9Participants in a workshop on sustainable development inspect solar panels at Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education, Mexico City on top of a building on campus. (from Solar energy)
-
Image 10Typical wind turbine components: (from Wind power)
-
Image 11Hydro generation by country, 2021 (from Hydroelectricity)
-
Image 12Greenhouses like these in the Westland municipality of the Netherlands grow vegetables, fruits and flowers. (from Solar energy)
-
Image 13Yearly hydro generation by continent (from Hydroelectricity)
-
Image 14Measurement of the tailrace and forebay rates at the Limestone Generating Station in Manitoba, Canada (from Hydroelectricity)
-
Image 15Greencap Energy solar array on NHS hospital in Keighley, England (from Solar energy)
-
Image 16A 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 17Wind farm in Xinjiang, China (from Wind power)
-
Image 18Energy 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 19A panoramic view of the United Kingdom's Whitelee Wind Farm with Lochgoin Reservoir in the foreground. (from Wind power)
-
Image 20The Hoover Dam in the United States is a large conventional dammed-hydro facility, with an installed capacity of 2,080 MW. (from Hydroelectricity)
-
Image 21Global map of wind power density potential (from Wind power)
-
-
-
Image 24Seasonal 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 25Charles F. Brush's wind turbine of 1888, used for generating electric power. (from Wind power)
-
Image 26The Three Gorges Dam in Central China is the world's largest power-producing facility of any kind. (from Hydroelectricity)
-
Image 27Distribution 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 28Livestock grazing near a wind turbine. (from Wind power)
-
Image 29Electricity generation at Wairakei, New Zealand (from Geothermal energy)
-
-
Image 31Merowe 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 32Global map of wind speed at 100 meters on land and around coasts. (from Wind power)
-
Image 33The oldest known pool fed by a hot spring, built in the Qin dynasty in the 3rd century BCE (from Geothermal energy)
-
Image 34Geothermal power station in the Philippines (from Geothermal energy)
-
Image 35Global geothermal electric capacity. Upper red line is installed capacity; lower green line is realized production. (from Geothermal energy)
-
Image 36A micro-hydro facility in Vietnam (from Hydroelectricity)
-
Image 37Electricity generation at Ohaaki, New Zealand (from Geothermal energy)
-
Image 38Share of electricity production from wind, 2023 (from Wind power)
-
Image 39Onshore wind cost per kilowatt-hour between 1983 and 2017 (from Wind power)
-
Image 40Wind 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 41In 2016, Solar Impulse 2 was the first solar-powered aircraft to complete a circumnavigation of the world. (from Solar energy)
-
Image 42Thermal energy storage. The Andasol CSP plant uses tanks of molten salt to store solar energy. (from Solar energy)
-
Image 43Typical components of a wind turbine (gearbox, rotor shaft and brake assembly) being lifted into position (from Wind power)
-
Image 44A small Quietrevolution QR5 Gorlov type vertical axis wind turbine on the roof of Bristol Beacon in Bristol, England. Measuring 3 m in diameter and 5 m high, it has a nameplate rating of 6.5 kW. (from Wind power)
-
Image 45The Warwick Castle water-powered generator house, used for the generation of electricity for the castle from 1894 until 1940 (from Hydroelectricity)
-
Image 46Cost development of solar PV modules per watt (from Solar energy)
-
Image 47Enhanced 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 48Darmstadt University of Technology, Germany, won the 2007 Solar Decathlon in Washington, DC with this passive house designed for humid and hot subtropical climate. (from Solar energy)
-
Image 49A power plant at The Geysers (from Geothermal energy)
-
Image 50Acceptance 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 51Greenhouse gas emissions per energy source. Wind energy is one of the sources with the least greenhouse gas emissions. (from Wind power)
-
-
Image 53Wind turbines are typically installed in windy locations. In the image, wind power generators in Spain, near an Osborne bull. (from Wind power)
-
Image 54The Ffestiniog Power Station can generate 360 MW of electricity within 60 seconds of the demand arising. (from Hydroelectricity)
-
Image 55World electricity production by source, 2000-2024 (from Wind power)
-
Image 56The Sun produces electromagnetic radiation that can be harnessed as useful energy. (from Solar energy)
-
Image 57Museum Hydroelectric power plant "Under the Town" in Užice, Serbia, built in 1900 (from Hydroelectricity)
-
Image 58Electricity generation at Poihipi, New Zealand (from Geothermal energy)
Select [►] to view subcategories
Renewable energy Renewable energy by continent Renewable energy by country Lists related to renewable energy Renewable energy certification Documentary films about alternative energy Renewable energy organizations People associated with renewable energy Renewable energy economics Renewable energy technology
The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:
Discover Wikipedia using portals
-
List of all portals
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Random portal
-
WikiProject Portals
-
|