Green Energy News
Energy CFOs predict solar will dominate
Energy Outlook Survey polled 100 chief financial officers (CFOs) at US energy organizations with revenues ranging from $250 million to $3 billion in October and November 2019.
The overall finding is that energy CFOs agree that green energy is the future. 38% of oil and gas CFOs felt the most dominant alternative energy by 2023 would be solar, followed by 28% choosing hydroelectric, and 16% choosing wind. 38% of power generation CFOs agreed about solar, but 22% chose wind, and 20% chose geothermal.
Drastically lower production costs, growing concern around climate change, evolving global energy policies, and increased pressure from investors on companies to adopt environmental social governance (ESG) polices are pushing renewables into the mainstream.
But the industry has a long way to go — according to energy CFOs, renewables aren’t projected to make up a significant part of their businesses for a few years.
The difference between the US and most other countries, particularly those in Europe, is that the US has a readily available source of energy that is cheap and abundant. Most countries, like those in Europe, do not have that luxury, and therefore the cost/benefit analysis outside of the US is completely different.
The cost per MWh has been dropping significantly, but it won’t be until we get to the point where energy storage for when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining has improved dramatically that we will see a large conversion to alternative energy.
We are seeing the shift and it is moving in the right direction within the US, [but] a dramatic turn to renewables has a lot of headwinds to overcome.
: “One thing is certain: The energy industry in 10 years will look completely different than it does today, and our world will be better off for it.”
Copy your neighbors: Get solar
A study by economics researchers at the University of Pittsburgwas published in the journal Environmental and Resource Economics, explored what happens to attitudes about climate change when people see their neighbors putting solar panels on their roofs.
The study analyzed five years of survey data collected between 2010 and 2014 in Australian communities.
It found that for every additional 1,000 solar panels in a neighborhood, the share of neighbors that believe climate change is primarily caused by human action increased by seven percentage points.
Graham Beattie, assistant professor of economics at Loyola Marymount University, who worked on the study as a post-doctoral researcher at Pitt until 2018, Said :
They see their neighbors install solar panels, so they get interested and read more on them and climate change to update their beliefs. Maybe they receive government funding to install panels, or maybe they just believe their neighbors more than scientists. There’s all kinds of possibilities as to why.
There’s a lot more solar installation in Australia than there is in the U.S., but conjecturally speaking, there’s no reason why this relationship wouldn’t also exist in the US.
