What is renewable energy content

Can all Renewables be governed by a common policy? Policy makers should be cognizant of the similarities as well as the variations among renewable energy resources. The commercial renewable energy technologies Establish an objective, specific to each renewable resource, which is designed to achieve national goals. Fundamentally, the answer depends on why the question is being asked, and in which country the policy is being applied.

There are, however, guidelines which may prove useful to policy strategists making this determination in any country.

Essentially, form must follow function. In other words, it is essential that the policy strategist understand the nature of each of the renewable resources and the nature of the process by which each of those resources is developed. The resources are fundamentally different. At present, the major commercial grid-connected renewable resources are hydroelectric, geothermal, biomass, wind energy and solar.

In the majority of legal regimes, hydroelectric and geothermal resources are identified as owned in common by the people of the country and husbanded by the government for their benefit. Drilling for geothermal resources involves many of the same discrete considerations involved with drilling for petroleum hydrocarbons and individual treatment is prudent.

Geothermal resources. What are the renewable energy applications? Characteristically, a grid is a portfolio of generating units operating under the control of a central dispatch center. Technically, every one of the commercial renewable resources can be and have been installed both on-grid and off-grid. Off-grid applications can take many forms, from photovoltaics for an individual village home to centralized windmills to power a village water pump or a commercial battery charging facility.

These off-grid applications are most generally used in remote or rural settings. The following charts illustrate common on-grid. This reduces transmission costs. Distributed generation tends to yield the largest returns in locations where it averts the need to increase transmission capacity. There are many other uses of each technology. Although a complete list of the benefits of renewable technologies can be very extensive, they can be categorized under four headings: environment, diversification, sustainability and economics.

Renewable resources are environmentally benign. Renewable energy facilities generally have a very modest impact on their surrounding environment. The discharges of unwanted or unhealthy substances into the air, ground or water commonly associated with other forms of generation can be reduced significantly by deploying renewables.

Clean technologies can also produce significant indirect economic benefits. For example, unlike fossil-fuel facilities, renewable facilities will not need to be fitted with scrubbing technology to mitigate air pollution, nor will a country need to expend resources in cleaning up polluted rivers or the earth around sites contaminated with fossil-fuel by-products.

Furthermore, they provide greenhouse gas reduction benefits and should a worldwide market for air emission credits emerge as has been predicted, countries with a strong portfolio of renewable energy projects may be able to earn pollution credits which can be exchanged for hard currency. Finally, having a clean environmental profile enhances the attractiveness of renewable projects in the eyes of investors, especially the multilateral development agencies, many of whom operate under guidelines that require the promotion of non-polluting technologies.

Renewable resources promote energy diversification. In effect, the construction of a renewable energy project provides future generations a low cost, energy facility that produces power with little or no environmental degradation. Renewable resources are sustainable. Reduced dependence on fuel imports reduces exposure to currency fluctuations and fuel price volatility. With its large landmass and diversified geography, Canada has an abundance of renewable resources that can be used to produce energy.

Canada is a world leader in the production and use of energy from renewable resources. Renewable energy resources currently provide Hydroelectricity is by far the most important form of renewable energy produced in Canada. Wind and solar photovoltaic power are experiencing the highest growth rates. Larger image. The table describes the renewable energy transformational universe from the state of a natural resource to the state of useful forms of energy.

It consists of three sections with the arrows going from the first section to the second and from the second to the third. The first section shows the renewable resources, with the examples such as moving water, biomass, wind, sunshine, the Earth.

The second one presents technology and equipment showing the examples of hydroelectric and wind turbines, wood stoves and furnaces, photovoltaic panels. The third section displays usable energy with the examples of electricity, industrial steam, heat for space and water, biofuels. The natural flow of water in rivers offers kinetic power that can be transformed into usable energy. Early usages included mechanical power for transformation activities, such as milling and sawing, and for irrigation.

As well, rivers have been used for transportation purposes, such as moving logs from forests to industrial centers. Currently, hydroelectricity is the major form of usable energy produced from flowing water. To produce hydroelectricity, the water flow is directed at the blades of a turbine, making it spin, which causes an electrical generator connected to the turbine to spin as well and thus generate electricity.

The amount of energy extracted from flowing water depends on the volume of water and its speed. Usually, a hydroelectric station is built at a sharp incline or waterfall to take advantage of the speed gained by the water as a result of gravity. Dams are built at some locations to help regulate the flow of water and, therefore, the electricity generation.

Canada has many rivers flowing from mountainous areas toward its three bordering oceans. In , Canada had hydroelectric stations with 78, megawatts of installed capacity.

These stations include small hydroelectric facilities, that is, facilities with a nameplate capacity of 50 megawatts or less, and they together represent 3. The bars of different heights show provincial capacities as follows:.

All the hydroelectric stations in Canada generated This accounted for Canada is the second largest producer of hydroelectricity in the world. Hydroelectric stations have been developed in Canada where the geography and hydrography were favourable, particularly in Quebec. Other areas producing large quantities of hydroelectricity include British Columbia, Newfoundland and Labrador, Manitoba, and Ontario.

Bioenergy comprises different forms of usable energy obtained from materials referred to as biomass. A biomass is a biological material in solid, liquid or gaseous form that has stored sunlight in the form of chemical energy.

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