COVID-19 Pandemic Affecting the Renewable Energy Industry

Obdeen Omer, Energy Research Institute, The University of Nottingham, England, Tel: +441133432498, Email: abdeenomer2@yahoo.co.uk

Published: 28-Jun-2021

The demand for energy continued to outstrip supply and necessitated the event of biomass option. Residues were the foremost popular sorts of renewable energy and currently biofuel production became much promising. Agricultural wastes contained high moisture content and could be decomposed easily by microbes. Agricultural wastes were abundantly available globally and will be converted to energy and useful chemicals by variety of microorganisms. Compost or bio-fertiliser could be produced with the inoculation of appropriated thermophilic microbes which increased the decomposition rate, shortened the maturity period and improved the compost (or bio-fertiliser) quality. The objective of this research was to market the biomass technology and involved adaptive research, demonstration and dissemination of results. With a view to fulfill the objective, a massive field survey was conducted to assess the availability of raw materials as well as the present situation of biomass technologies. In the present communication, an attempt had also been made to present an overview of present and future use of biomass as an industrial feedstock for production of fuels, chemicals and other materials. We may conclude from the review paper that biomass technology must be encouraged, promoted, invested, implemented, and demonstrated, not only in urban areas but also in remote rural areas.

The biomass energy, one among the important options, which could gradually replace the oil in facing the increased demand for oil and should be a complicated period during this century. Any county can depend upon the biomass energy to satisfy a part of local consumption. Development of biogas technology may be a vital component of other rural energy programme, whose potential is yet to be exploited. A concerted effect is required by all if this is to be realized. The technology will find ready use in domestic, farming, and small-scale industrial applications. Support biomass research and exchange experiences with countries that are advanced in this field. In the meantime, the biomass energy can help to save lots of exhausting the oil wealth.

As coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) continues to comb the world, putting many thousands of lives in danger and threatening to collapse economies, one among the sole silver linings has been the current benefits to the environment. As countries try to contain viral spread by restricting travel and social interaction, cities have seen all-time lows in air pollution levels and researchers are reporting the sharpest decline in greenhouse gas emissions since records began.

With the lockdown measures imposed on billions across the world bringing a halt to “business as usual,” an associated estimated fall in global energy demand of 6% has meant this year’s carbon emissions are set to say no by around 8%. The International Energy Agency (IEA) says the demand for renewables is predicted to surge, as social distancing and lockdown measures taken in almost every country propel a shift towards more reliable and cleaner sources of energy such as wind, hydropower and solar photovoltaic (solar PV; where solar light energy is converted into electrical energy). “The recent drop in electricity demand fast-forwarded some power systems 10 years into the future, suddenly giving them levels of wind and solar power they wouldn’t have had otherwise without another decade of investment in renewables.”

In China, the world’s largest consumer of electricity, factory shutdowns and therefore the associated reduction within the use of commercial electricity means 2020 will likely see a cut in energy consumption equivalent to the quantity of power used across the entire of Chile. In European countries like the United Kingdom, Spain and Italy, where offices, factories, bars, restaurants and theatresss remain closed, energy use has fallen by a mean of 10%.

Fossil fuel sources are the foremost suffering from reduced demand, with coal, for instance, becoming the foremost expensive energy source, while cleaner, renewable sources became increasingly cheaper.

In April 2020, for example, Austria and Sweden announced the closure of their last remaining coal-fired plants. On 29th April, the UK’s grid operator declared that the country had not used coal for around 18 days straight, which has not been done since the Industrial Revolution. Natural resources and energy consulting company, Wood Mackenzie, says COVID-19 is now threatening as much as $210 billion of planned investment in oil and gas.

This backtrack in investment will eventually cause the recovery of gas and oil prices as supply decreases over time, but it could even have a consequence for renewables, providing this sector with a valuable window of opportunity to gain a stronger foothold in the market. Renewable energy sources have been given a boost, with overall demand expected to grow by 1% this year and particularly the need for renewable electricity, which is expected to increase by 5%.

“COVID-19 is a terrible thing, but it doesn’t impact how much the sun shines or the wind blows,” says Simon Eaves, managing director of asset management company, Capital Dynamics. “Renewable energy is clearly robust during this market.” Eaves, who manages over $6.4 bn in clean energy assets, says plans are soon going ahead to shop for a solar-powered farm in Spain that will supply almost 30,000 households. Emphasizing how cost-effective renewables have become, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi, recently announced an unprecedented low-cost solar installation that will generate as much energy as a nuclear reactor.

Citation: Obdeen Omer. COVID-19 Pandemic Affecting the Renewable Energy Industry. J Environ Occup Health. 2021; 11(6):69-70.

Copyright: © 2021 The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.