7 August 2012
IEA Journal Focuses on Renewables and Energy Security, the Success of Wind Energy, and African Energy Challenges
story highlights

The latest IEA Journal provides an overview of the role of renewables in electricity security and highlights energy diversification for increasing security.

A private sector view is provided on wind power and the worldwide section focuses on energy challenges facing Africa.

IEA31 July 2012: The second issue of IEA Energy, the Journal of the International Energy Agency (IEA), has been published. Featured topics include renewable energy, realizing a renewable energy fueled future, and the security questions this would raise. The Journal also includes sections on markets and security, and innovation and environment.

The cover story features an expert view on renewables provided by Paolo Frankl, IEA, who explains that IEA favors energy diversification to reduce emissions and increase energy security. He notes that today, cost competitiveness remains the most significant barrier for new renewables, with incentives needed for solar and geothermal. On economic incentives, Frankl observes they must accompany emerging renewables technologies to level the playing field. Laszio Varro, IEA, provides an overview on the role of renewables in electricity security. He notes that the most probable crisis is inadequate power generation capacity, where the system is not able to transform enough primary energy into electricity to meet demand. In another featured topic, Hugo Chandler, IEA, discusses views on renewable energy variability, noting that as renewables increase their share in the energy mix, significant changes are being made to infrastructure, consumption, and the broader energy landscape.

Focusing on the private sector, Ditlev Engel, CEO, Vestas, highlights that the reduction in costs has been the most important driver behind wind power’s impressive growth in the last ten years. In the worldwide spotlight section, Veronika Gyuricza, IEA, highlights energy as one of the challenges affecting Africa, with few countries managing to reap or distribute the benefits from the energy resources. Gyuricza, notes that rather than choosing the energy mix and technologies used by OECD countries in the 1950s and 1960s, Sub-Saharan African countries could leapfrog to solutions more adapted for low carbon development, skipping a 20-25 year development curve that industralized countries went through. [Publication: IEA Journal Issue 2]