Sustainable Energy Transition for Renewable and Low Carbon Grid Electricity Generation and Supply

Abstract

The greatest sustainability challenge facing humanity today is the greenhouse gas emissions and the global climate change with fossil fuels led by coal, natural gas and oil contributing 61.3% of global electricity generation in the year 2020. The cumulative effect of the Stockholm, Rio, and Johannesburg conferences identified sustainable energy development (SED) as a very important factor in the sustainable global development. This study reviews energy transition strategies and proposes a roadmap for sustainable energy transition for sustainable electricity generation and supply in line with commitments of the Paris Agreement aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and limiting the rise in global average temperature to 1.5°C above the preindustrial level. The sustainable transition strategies typically consist of three major technological changes namely, energy savings on the demand side, generation efficiency at production level and fossil fuel substitution by various renewable energy sources and low carbon nuclear. For the transition remain technically and economically feasible and beneficial, policy initiatives are necessary to steer the global electricity transition towards a sustainable energy and electricity system. Large-scale renewable energy adoption should include measures to improve efficiency of existing nonrenewable sources which still have an important cost reduction and stabilization role. A resilient grid with advanced energy storage for storage and absorption of variable renewables should also be part of the transition strategies. From this study, it was noted that whereas sustainable development has social, economic, and environmental pillars, energy sustainability is best analysed by five-dimensional approach consisting of environmental, economic, social, technical, and institutional/political sustainability to determine resource sustainability. The energy transition requires new technology for maximum use of the abundant but intermittent renewable sources a sustainable mix with limited nonrenewable sources optimized to minimize cost and environmental impact but maintained quality, stability, and flexibility of an electricity supply system. Technologies needed for the transition are those that use conventional mitigation, negative emissions technologies which capture and sequester carbon emissions and finally technologies which alter the global atmospheric radiative energy budget to stabilize and reduce global average temperature. A sustainable electricity system needs facilitating technology, policy, strategies and infrastructure like smart grids, and models with an appropriate mix of both renewable and low carbon energy sources.

Biogas Production and Applications in the Sustainable Energy Transition

“…Upgrading processes apply process techniques to remove the biogas impurities, mainly carbon dioxide. The most common processes are water scrubbing and membrane separation which combined account for about 60% of global biomethane production [115,122]. Biogas upgrading provides an alternative avenue for CO 2 sequestration by increasing biogas utility for use in commercial conversion technologies [123].…”

“…There are streams of excess organic biodegradable materials, previously regarded as waste, from industrial processes, human activities, crop husbandry, and animal husbandry and processing that can be readily converted to biogas and biomethane with available biogas technology [106,122,170]. These wastes can be channeled to biogas digesters and converted to useful energy.…”

“…The growth and spread of biogas technology have encountered mixed results of success and failure. The technical requirements for the operation and maintenance of biogas plants require training and availability of skilled personnel and skills which may be scarce in many rural areas of developing countries [3,122]. This has led to operational failure of many biodigesters which is an indicator of lack of sustainability.…”

Global Monitoring of the Development of Digital Energetics Based on the Technologies of Industry 4.0: IoT, Blockchain, Robots, and Artificial Intelligence

“…Unlike Baxter (2012), Inshakov et al (2019), Kabeyi and Olanrewaju (2022), Kapitonov et al (2019), Kluczek et al (2021), andRatner et al (2022), it was proved that digitalization of the energy economy based on advanced technologies of Industry 4.0 is not universal-it should be based on a unique organizational model for each category of countries, considering its peculiarities. The reasoning of this conclusion is based on the fundamental differences in the connection of energy sustainability with the readiness for the Frontier Technologies Index and with the government AI Readiness Index among countries of different categories.…”

Re-powering the Nature-Intensive Systems: Insights From Linking Nature-Based Solutions and Energy Transition

“…Moreover, transitioning from fossil fuel-based consumptions to renewable energies such as wind, solar and thermal is another example of natural solutions in which an integration of technological innovations and alternative energies can is used to prevent harming the environment. Energy transition can help societies achieve sustainable goals through providing a wide variety of ecosystem services such as food supply, energy poverty eradication, energy justice among many more (Kabeyi and Olanrewaju, 2022).…”