Opinion: It is unlikely that renewable sources of energy will replace conventional energy any time soon

Leaders of the European Union member states have agreed to raise the share of renewable energy in the total European energy budget up to 27% by 2030. It was also decided that greenhouse gas emissions will be reduced by 40% by 2030 in comparison with 1990. Several countries are not entirely optimistic about the plans. For instance, coal-based power generation prevails over other kinds of energy generation in Poland. The country is concerned about the possible slowdown of economy growth rate due to the transition to renewable sources of energy.

While alternative power engineering (or renewable sources of energy) has been developing for decades across the globe, it still lags behind the conventional ways to get electricity such as heat power engineering, hydropower engineering, and nuclear power engineering. The opinion was voiced by Dmitry Baranov, leading expert of the managing company Finam Management. Yet alternative power engineering has its uses. At present its share in Russia’s energy balance is estimated at 3-5% while the figure is roughly 10-20% in developed countries. The total volume of money invested internationally in the development of alternative power engineering has already exceeded $1 trillion.

In many countries when faced with real competition and market judgment the ability of renewable energy projects to “take a punch” has turned out to be below expectations. Renewable energy faces certain difficulties with working in real conditions. While the world expects alternative power engineering to produce results comparable to those of conventional power engineering it is yet difficult to accomplish that. One can hardly expect that renewable energy sources will be able to compete with conventional energy sources in the next few years since the former still need a lot of time to reach the economic and technical parameters of the latter. It is likely that in the medium term alternative power engineering will complement conventional ways to get energy at least until a radical technological breakthrough is secured to enable simple and cheap energy generation in comparison with conventional power engineering.

Taking into account these considerations, it would be logical for European nations to once again return to nuclear power engineering that received unwarranted thrashing in Europe several years ago. Meanwhile, nuclear power engineering could be much more attractive than renewable energy sources. First, nuclear power has been in use for decades, providing electricity and heat to many countries. Second, unlike alternative energy nuclear energy has no technological or organizational problems with connecting to the existing power grid. Third, nuclear energy installations are, as a rule, much smaller than alternative energy installations in output per area terms. At last, it may sound paradoxical but the environmental impact of nuclear energy is much smaller if, naturally, all the safety rules are observed. Since a number of European countries have resumed the national programs to build nuclear power plants and develop nuclear energy, it would be logical to prioritize nuclear energy as a key source of energy on the continent as part of the effort to accomplish the goals outlined by the European climate and power engineering strategy for the period till 2030. Meanwhile, renewable energy can be used as an auxiliary way of power generation, in particular, at peaks of energy consumption.