As the platform is developing quickly and we are constantly growing, I would like to provide a perspective on energy and renewable energy markets so that the context surrounding WePower would be clear to everyone.

This blog is the first of a series on the market evolution and is heading to answer questions, and provide information in combination to our AMA sessions, and Engineering blog posts.

From the time of an industrial revolution, our world has been propelled by energy consumption, steam as a way to convert energy to a usable form for the industry and the society. We have been efficient in expanding economies based on fossil fuels causing consequences to our planet. Economic shocks, such as Oil shock in the 70’s, and global oil prices in the 00’s, have put a pressure on finding alternatives for cheaper energy production. International Agreements became a driving power to do some good and achieve adoption of renewables. I think this was a difficult, but a very important work on their part. I will not go into the details here, as that is very complex and the work took decades to be done by many organizations. 12 years ago the price of an installed solar watt of output was 2USD now it’s 0.35 cents. Agreements, such as Kyoto, cemented the base for growth of renewables and adoption of carbon neutral concept.

So where are we now? We are at the precipice of our choices and we can either do what is needed right now cheaply or kick the can down the road and then do what will be required later at a much steeper price. The choice is always ours.

“12 years ago the price of an installed solar watt of output was 2USD now it’s 0.35 cents.”

With the subsidies placing investment into renewables at all times high, I am personally not a fan of those as subsidies distort the market, however, it was a good case to kick-start the deployment of renewables with astonishing results in countries like Germany. Subsidies contributed to the huge decrease in the price of renewable energy production equipment both in Solar and Wind industries, which is fundamental as technology does not require fuel to produce energy.

Today we are at the point where investment into renewables has decreased. However, the cost of renewable energy producing equipment is low and efficient enough to compete with traditional “Steam-powered” energy generation. This opens great possibilities for everyone to contribute to the shift in the way energy is produced and the shift is easy — just select renewable energy to consume and you are set.

“The cost of renewable energy producing equipment is low and efficient enough to compete with traditional “Steam-powered” energy generation.”

This week EU has set the target to 32% renewables by 2030. It is a huge achievement in a political sense, however, this can’t be forced and a bottom-up approach is much more efficient for everyone — we should move much faster! You can see the way political arena work here and it’s not a straightforward process. When the reasons are right, we can do much better! By uniting we need to achieve our goal no matter what the politicians do, as it was the case of President Trump opting out of Paris agreement.

There is no fear in not reaching out targets but there is a fear in not setting goals at all, and I am happy that Spain, the country that is first in our roadmap, is setting up higher goals, today becoming an even better place for us to work.

Want to learn more about the market of renewable energy? Join our Telegram group, share your insights/questions — I will cover suggested aspects in an upcoming market overviews.