The energy question to which we already have (most of) the answers

While technology exists to scale renewable energy, improve efficiency, and decarbonize, targeted efforts in key areas can significantly advance progress towards a low-carbon future.

December 13, 2024
Reading Time : 7 minutes

The need to cut our use of hydrocarbons urgently and transition to low carbon energy sources is globally acknowledged. From a technological perspective, we already have - for the most part - the know-how to make significant advancements towards these goals. Worldwide, we have successfully been generating clean energy from a diversity of renewable and low carbon sources for decades. More recently, innovation around battery storage to deal with the intermittency of renewables has been progressing at pace. There are unquestionably some heavy industries, which, due to their chemical nature or the level of industrial heating required, present decarbonization challenges, but here too innovations and emerging technologies are starting to identify alternatives.

Notwithstanding the technological aspects, achieving the transition to Net Zero will depend on our ability to address three overriding realities:

Despite the widespread and established use of low carbon energy supply technologies, 80% of our energy systems still rely on fossil fuels.
775 million people live without electricity and one third of the global population lacks access to clean cooking fuels (with implications both in terms of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and also for health).
Global demand for electricity will grow as much as three-fold by 2050 to meet both the existing energy shortfall, retirement of existing fossil and other generation sources, and to keep pace with ongoing population growth and our increasingly energy-dependent lifestyles.

For WSP in Sweden’s Power & Energy Director, Anna Nordling, we are entering a pivotal time in our journey towards net zero: “Next year will mark ten years since the Paris Agreement. A decade on from that landmark accord we must now move from the goal setting and strategizing to delivering those pledges.

“There are multiple areas – the low hanging fruit - where we can immediately start reducing GHG emissions including retrofitting buildings, replacing vehicle fleets with EVs, and more energy efficient systems and facilities. Inevitably, the further we progress along the path to net zero, the harder it will become. In some cases, we will be reliant on technologies that are only just emerging, or that may not be commercially viable currently. In the meantime, as we scale up low carbon energy capacity, we will need to explore every opportunity for carbon capture and storage (and usage) and every shade of the Hydrogen rainbow. But even if we can’t visualize every stage of the decarbonization journey today, it is abundantly clear that we need to do what we can to continue making progress.”

Net zero pathway

Anna Nordling

Power & Energy Director

Sweden

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Steve Kiser

Global Power and Energy Client Program

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Anna outlines five key areas where we can focus efforts simultaneously to make an impact:

Identifying energy efficiency opportunities to cut current energy usage to the minimum is a priority first step.
Multi-sector electrification, with the industrial and transport sectors taking the bulk of our efforts.
With coal, natural gas and oil still accounting for the majority of global energy supply, reducing fossil fuel consumption. Reducing the reliance on fossil fuels for power production from 60% of the 29,000 TWh produced globally in 2022 to just 20% by 2050, coinciding with a huge push in using clean energy sources.
Investment in technology, including the development of and/or advancement in newer technologies like energy storage and new forms of clean energy supply.
Investment in transmission and distribution networks to accommodate the electrification and the expansion of electricity from renewables.

Broader challenges and opportunities

But the obstacles to reaching net zero won’t be limited to the technical elements of the transition from carbon to wind, solar, hydro or nuclear. There are several other factors which, unless they are addressed as a matter of urgency, could hamper our efforts to decarbonize, as WSP’s Global Energy Client Leader, Steve Kiser, outlines:

Regulatory Landscape – It’s clear that an energy transition often moves fast and requires immediate progress, and the policy / regulatory process is not able to move a pace that allows for this development to take place.
Supply Chain – With a fast-moving and dynamic clean energy market, existing supply chains have become stressed for materials like photovoltaic panels and high voltage cables (for example, certain high voltage cable suppliers have suggested their order books are full for the next several years). Similarly, advancement and fast-adoption of battery storage technology has required significant volumes of key minerals / metals from new sources and geographies.
Finance (capital spending and higher operating costs) – Recent rises in inflation and interest rates have been challenging for funding of new capital projects, and the cost of new clean energy projects is growing even faster due to interconnection challenges, and a desire for new technologies like hydrogen and small modular reactors (SMRs).
Grid Network Improvements – The replacement of fossil generation with more decentralized and intermittent clean energy generation creates challenges with the grid, resulting in a bottleneck of interconnection requests and a slow interconnect approval process.

Nevertheless, while transitioning to a net zero economy will undoubtedly throw up a myriad of challenges, it also represents a unique opportunity, Steve adds. “It provides us with the chance to deliver the systemic changes necessary from a more holistic perspective. With careful planning, net zero strategies will achieve not just emissions reductions but also long-term co-benefits, including biodiversity gains, climate change resilience and positive social outcomes for the immediate stakeholders and wider communities affected.”

Decarbonization cannot be achieved in sectoral isolation

It’s clear that reaching our sustainability objective will require multi-sector collaboration at the highest levels. Energy is at the core of sustainable development, together with the global food and water industries. These three sectors are intrinsically connected in the so-called water-energy-food nexus. Water is already critical in most forms of energy production, not least in hydropower and the nascent hydrogen sector. As we look to ramp up clean energy sources, water availability and quality will become even more important. Furthermore, while themselves both energy-intensive, the food and water sectors simultaneously offer huge opportunities to positively impact global GHG emissions and even generate energy from their own operations. While the concepts behind capturing energy from wastewater (biogas) and agri-waste are not new, achieving the potential energy synergies will depend on much closer co-operation.

Meanwhile, deeper engagement with high energy industrial users – the steel industry for example - is also critical. Some industrial companies are taking ground-breaking steps to provide clean energy for their operations. One example is the siting of a first-of-kind small modular reactor (SMR) nuclear development at an existing chemical facility in Texas to provide steam and power to the facility. Such initiatives are certainly encouraging, but scaling these approaches up to the levels required will take enormous efforts.

Finally, as in all sectors, digital solutions and technologies are already playing a key role in our decarbonization efforts, by enabling us to collect and compute ever greater volumes of data. This is enabling better decision making, driving efficiencies and optimizing our energy use. Engaging with technology providers and continually refining and leveraging these tools and digital insights will be paramount.

With over 6,000 energy experts worldwide, WSP has a key role

As one of the world’s leading engineering and professional services firms, WSP is unique in its ability to help drive the energy transition thanks to the deep domain knowledge of its thousands of energy experts worldwide. Our energy professionals are in turn supported by teams across the wider WSP business, including environmental, advisory, buildings, transport, and infrastructure.

We have been supporting our clients in the energy sector – including solar, on- and offshore wind, energy storage, nuclear, hydrogen, hydroelectric, natural gas, and transmission and distribution - across the globe for over 50 years. We are ideally positioned to continue partnering with them as they invest in a sustainable future.