DISCOVER CLEAN ENERGY.
Clean Energy comprises products, processes and services that are designed to enable sustainable use of energy. Key elements include the clean generation of electricity, clean transport, products that use energy more efficiently and processes that reduce demand in energy.
What is driving Clean Energy?
Governments
Governments are generally concerned about environmental issues (including climate change risks), the uninterrupted supply of affordable energy, public opinion and international commitments. Those have to balanced by budget constraints and political pragmatism.
This can lead to an array of policy inducements in the form of incentives, taxes and regulation. Most public policy is directed towards the demand (i.e. support of use), though some resources are spent on direct support for R&D in clean tech companies and universities or direct investment in renewable energy assets such as wind parks..
Businesses
For private companies, the business case of clean energy technologies is quite different. In most instances, it will not include references to climate change or energy security. These concerns have already been translated by governments into policy. Instead, business decisions will mainly be based on economic analysis, taking into account regulatory frameworks, changing demographics or need for replacement of existing infrastructure.
What is Renewable Energy?
Renewable Energy comes from sources that do not deplete over years such as sun, wind, oceans and plants.
Renewable energy technologies convert those source of such as wind and solar to energy forms that we can readily use, including heat and electricity. There are numerous ways to convert primary energy forms into consumable forms of energy. Electricity is perhaps the most precious form of energy, as it is most versatile in usage. However, electricity cannot be stored and has to be consumed instantly. Due to the intermittent nature of many renewable sources, the issue of storing electricity is of particular importance. Surplus energy can be used to pump water up to damed mountain lakes or to re-charge batteries. Hydrogen, on the other hand, is an energy carrier, a fuel that is man-made. |
