SOMETIMES SOCIETY NEEDS A SHAKE-UP, a wake-up call, and this was hammered home following the invasion of Ukraine which sent energy markets into a spin. Clearly dependency on oil and gas produced by a war-mongering nation is neither smart nor sustainable. Devilishly dumb in fact. Michael Liebreich writes “Twenty years ago, sustainability was the only real driver of the transition to clean energy. Around ten years ago there was a major acceleration when it became clear that wind, solar and batteries were going to become really cheap; economics also started to drive the clean energy transition. “I believe this hellish year is going to lead to another similar acceleration, as it becomes clear that clean energy, and not fossil fuels, holds the key to energy security.” His BloombergNEF article After Ukraine – The Great Clean Energy Acceleration, concludes “If there is to be a silver lining to this ghastly war, therefore, it will be that it draws a permanent line under Europe’s longstanding over-dependence on Russian fossil fuels”. And that is the very message being amplified by Alex Hewitt, co-founder and chairman of CWP Global (pictured speaking below) who now resides in London. Keeping close watch on European market movements, he is now urging all in the renewables industry to think and act big. That was the gist of his address, a call to arms if you like, at the Smart Energy Council Summit in Queensland in mid-September. Alex’s message is in response to the confluence of the energy crisis in Europe,
IMAGE: GLENN HUNT
Time to act. Now
sky rocketing gas prices, yet more alarming IPCC report findings and the all but certainty of life-threatening global temperatures, all of which scream the message we need to transition to renewables and ditch reliance on fossil fuels. Quick smart. “Of course it won’t happen overnight but we’re just not doing anything fast enough, the energy transition is just mindboggling large, it’s enormous and we are ten years behind the eight ball,” Alex said. “The Russian invasion of Ukraine has only exacerbated the situation.” A slide (pictured below) illustrated the formidable forward prices of electricity in Europe that will rise to 524 euros per megawatt hour next year, ten times the price of wholesale generation which in itself is about 10 times the average price of energy in Europe over last 10 years. Crisis meetings are being held every second day. “In the short term there’s a very significant problem but [look at] the ability of renewables to arrest climate change and bring down energy prices in the long term and [facilitate] price caps and clawbacks on excessive profits.” Changes are afoot, innovative financing is coming through supported by multinational banks in the European Union in the bid to speedily develop more renewables, Alex said. Dramatic though this is, it’s a short-term challenge but nothing compared to the biggest challenge we are facing which is arresting climate change. “We are just ambling along despite the IPCC reporting; we have a carbon dioxide budget of less than 500 gigatons to get to net zero by 2050 and if we continue at our current rate the carbon budget is IMAGE: GLENN HUNT
