The electrification of energy: Long-term trends and opportunities
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Review The electrification of energy: Long-term trends and opportunities
Jeffrey Y. Tsao, Semiconductor and Optical Sciences Group, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87185, USA E. Fred Schubert, Electrical, Computer, and Systems Engineering Department, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York 12180, USA Roger Fouquet, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, London School of Economics & Political Science, London WC2A 2AE, U.K. Matthew Lave, Photovoltaic and Distributed Systems Department, Sandia National Laboratories, Livermore, California 94550, USA Address all correspondence to Jeffrey Y. Tsao at [email protected] (Received 12 December 2017; accepted 29 March 2018)
ABSTRACT We present and analyze three powerful long-term historical trends in the electrification of energy by free-fuel sources. These trends point toward a future in which energy is affordable, abundant, and efficiently deployed; with major economic, geo-political, and environmental benefits to humanity. We present and analyze three powerful long-term historical trends in energy, particularly electrical energy, as well as the opportunities and challenges associated with these trends. The first trend is from a world containing a diversity of energy currencies to one whose predominant currency is electricity, driven by electricity’s transportability, exchangeability, and steadily decreasing cost. The second trend is from electricity generated from a diversity of sources to electricity generated predominantly by free-fuel sources, driven by their steadily decreasing cost and long-term abundance. These trends necessitate a just-emerging third trend: from a grid in which electricity is transported unidirectionally, traded at near-static prices, and consumed under direct human control; to a grid in which electricity is transported bidirectionally, traded at dynamic prices, and consumed under human-tailored artificial agential control. These trends point toward a future in which energy is not costly, scarce, or inefficiently deployed but instead is affordable, abundant, and efficiently deployed; with major economic, geo-political, and environmental benefits to humanity. Keywords: energy generation; energy storage; environment; fossil fuel; government policy and funding
DISCUSSION POINTS • C oncern over climate change often leads to a pessimistic view of a future in which energy will be costly and scarce; careful consideration of the electrification of energy through free-fuel sources leads instead to an optimistic view of a future in which energy will be affordable and abundant. • A ffordability and abundance of free-fuel electricity at low penetration is no longer in doubt; it is at high penetration that the uncertainty and challenges lie. • W e can be optimistic about the many energy/information options available to an adaptive grid that could accommodate free-fuel electricity sources that fluctuate in space and time, though we do not know which of these options will be important in future.
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