Renewable energy transition: challenges and opportunities Addressing the topfive challenges in the renewable energy transitionwill likely create global, cross industry opportunities for innovation, investment, and partnerships
Jim Thomson, Marlene Motyka and Suzanna Sanborn Deloitte
A s many economies across the globe develop roadmaps for the energy transition, planners are considering what it will take to decarbonise electric grids. The answer almost always includes boosting renewable energy generation. While that has been under way for some time in many countries, the pace will likely need to pick up further to keep up with decarbonisation plans. And that means addressing challenges and harnessing opportunities for innovation, investment, and partnerships within and across industries. Deloitte explored five commonly discussed challenges in the renewable energy transition, and surveyed power and utilities executives in the US to understand their perspectives on these issues (Deloitte, 2021). Figure 1 lists these five challenges and the percentage of respondents who ranked each as number one.
Integrating variable renewables Nearly half (48%) of the power and utilities industry survey respondents rated “integrating intermittent renewables such as wind and solar while maintaining reliability” as the most challenging issue among the five listed in Figure 1 . Despite ranking it as #1 of the five challenges, nearly three-quarters (73%) of our survey respondents said the US can integrate far more wind and solar power than it has now without compromising reliability as long as the industry builds flexibility into the grid and plans ahead to use resources such as energy storage to manage intermittency. And only 15% of respondents said the US should limit additions of wind and solar power due to reliability concerns. The concern appears to be more of a recognition of the investment and effort it will take to integrate these variable resources.
48%
Integrating intermittent renewables such as wind and......
25%
Meeting projected rising demand for renewably......
Funding the required investment in renewables and......
20%
Ensuring that wind, solar and storage assets are......
8%
0%
Continuing renewables growth in the face of potential......
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50% & who rated this as the #1 challenge
Figure 1 Top renewable energy transition challenges for power and utilities industry respondents Source: The Deloitte Renewable Transition survey (Deloitte, 2020). To understand the perspectives of the electric power industry executives on the five challenges discussed in this article, Deloitte fielded a survey in July 2021 to more than 40 industry executives and senior leaders. The findings were supplemented by interviews with executives and leaders and other electric power providers
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