Once dwarfed by fossil fuels, renewable energy has grown to become an established part of the UK's energy mix. In 2024, the UK sourced 50.8% of its electricity from renewables, while in countries like Norway, 98% of its power now comes from renewables, showing how renewable energy can provide large quantities of power without any resultant loss in efficiency.
At CFP Energy, we’re at the forefront of the energy transition. From PPAs to RECs, we can assist you at every stage of your decarbonisation journey.
Contact our carbon team to access renewable power or renewable energy certificates today.
Harnessing Nature’s Power - The Advantages of Renewable Energy
The UN defines renewables as "energy derived from natural sources that are replenished at a higher rate than they are consumed.” The rate at which renewables can realistically be replenished, as a result, determines the renewability of each type of energy source.
Renewables such as wind and solar, for instance, count as more renewable than biofuels, just as hydropower is more renewable than geothermal energy. This is because, unlike solar and wind, biofuels must go through various types of biochemical refinement before becoming fuel.
Similarly, although geothermal energy is a renewable energy source, the method used to extract it can potentially cause the release of potentially harmful pollutants. This is in contrast to hydropower, a renewable that is driven by the natural flow of water and therefore doesn’t require invasive extraction.
Maximising Sustainability: The Disadvantages of Renewable Energy
To ensure that renewable energy remains a long-term solution, and not just a short-term fix, there are a number of key drawbacks of renewables that must be addressed.
Perhaps the most significant issue faced by renewables is local geography: some countries, due to poor or unpredictable weather conditions (i.e., low sunlight, infrequent winds) cannot fully benefit from solar power and wind farms. Similarly, countries that face extreme droughts are limited in their capacity to support hydroelectric energy.
Another problem that renewables face is long-term energy storage. Storing energy during peak output, at present, is cost-prohibitive for many businesses, and where energy can’t be stored, it must be used instantly or earthed to avoid overloading the grid.
To ensure that these obstacles don’t work against renewable energy adoption, businesses should make sure that their renewables are properly sourced and offer genuine long-term carbon reductions. To see how we can help you reduce your CO₂ emissions with renewables that ensure sustainable, long-duration delivery, please see our power purchase agreement page and renewable energy certificate page here.
A Breakdown of Renewable Energy Sources
Replenishment Profiles:
- Solar Energy – instantaneous replenishment as sunlight continuously reaches Earth
- Wind Energy - replenishes within minutes to hours as atmospheric conditions change
- Hydroelectric - the water cycle operates continuously while reservoirs refill seasonally
- Geothermal Energy - heat continuously generated, but full recovery may take decades
- Biofuels & Feedstocks - fast-growing crops (e.g., corn) take several months to grow, while trees can take years to decades to replenish, depending on the species
Figure 1: chart illustrating the breakdown of energy sources in the UK's electricity grid (source: National Grid).
Innovation Engine: Driving Technological Advancements in Energy
The past few decades have seen a remarkable shift towards renewables, and with it, the ongoing development of new technologies to help stimulate their adoption. From wind power to feedstocks, sustainable energy sources are continually being improved.
Innovations in Wind Power
Wind power is already a highly efficient and sustainable energy source. In 2024, wind power accounted for 30% of the national grid’s supply, up from 24% in 2020.
But there are a number of pain points that continue to hamper this technology, most notably a grid infrastructure that sometimes struggles with transmission and storage capacity.
However, with the current National Grid upgrade underway and with the National Wealth Fund injecting £600m to help alleviate bottlenecks that result in wasted wind power between the Scotland-England B6 boundary, issues like these should become less frequent.
Bladeless Designs
Bladeless designs, harnessing a physical phenomenon known as aeroelastic resonance, or vortex shedding, can operate without blades or other moving parts.
Using a cylindrical mast that oscillates freely perpendicular to the direction of the wind, these designs benefit from a number of advantages over traditional designs.
These include reduced maintenance costs, low noise levels and visual impact and, crucially, the ability to operate in significantly lower wind speeds - a particular benefit in a country like the UK where onshore wind frequently falls below 7 miles per hour.
Floating Wind Farms
Notoriously hampered by low winds onshore, the UK has been using floating wind farms since 2017, when the world's first floating wind farm, Hywind Scotland, was set up.
Floating wind farms possess several distinct advantages. Ordinary, fixed-bottom turbines, while cost-effective, cannot be deployed in waters deeper than 60 metres. Because strong winds are mostly found offshore, sometimes in waters up to 1,300 metres in depth, this severely limits the energy that wind turbines can harness.
By contrast, being located further out to sea, floating wind farms can take advantage of higher wind speeds, thereby significantly increasing their energy generation.
Innovations in Biofuels
Biofuels with reduced carbon emissions profiles are already some of the most energy-efficient fuels on the market. But with genetically engineered feedstocks and advanced fermentation methods currently under development, their sustainability is set to improve even more.
GM Algae: engineered to increase photosynthetic efficiency, genetically modified algae can capture and convert more solar energy than natural algae. This means that fuels generated from this type of algae, such as next-generation bioethanol, enjoy far greater fuel efficiency compared to natural, organic algae.
Some GM strains, for instance, such as chlorella vulgaris, have demonstrated up to a 50% increase in lipid content. Because higher lipid content makes more oil available for conversion, this makes biofuels based on these strains more energy efficient.
Biocrude: through a method called Enhanced Hydrothermal Liquefaction (HTL), wet biomass can be converted into bio-crude oil. A process that takes millions of years as a natural phenomenon, HTL can produce the same results within hours. As this method becomes more refined, biocrude could potentially exist alongside crude oil in the next 10 to 20 years.
Innovations in Solar Power
Harnessed by solar photovoltaic cells, solar power remains one of the most abundant sources of energy. However, despite their efficiency, photovoltaic cells suffer from several problems, including poor electrical output in low or intermittent sunlight.
Perovskite Solar Cells: through a range of improvements, these next-generation solar cells promise to one day replace photovoltaic, silicon-based cells. Recent advancements, including tandem structuring, mean that perovskite solar cells are now 1.5 times more efficient times more efficient than traditional solar cells, while lower production costs – a result of their lightweight construction – makes them cost-effective too.
Transparent Solar Cells: one of the major drawbacks of traditional photovoltaic cells is that, being opaque, they can only be placed on walls and rooftops. With the advent of transparent solar cells, otherwise known as transparent luminescent solar concentrators (TLSCs), however, this is set to change.
These advanced materials boast up to 79% transparency, meaning that they can be installed as windows, fanlights or even used to generate power for glass-faced devices like smartphones and watches – ensuring that a vast and underutilised surface area is harnessed to generate power.
Pros and Cons of Renewable Energy - Balancing the Mix of Renewables
Although great strides are being made in replenishables - from solar and wind to the latest biofuels - there is still room for further growth. At present, replenishables make up around 40% percent of the energy mix, a figure that could easily be increased with targeted investment.
Although this is a high share compared to other countries, such as the US, where renewables make up around 9% percent of the total energy mix, to secure a sustainable grid, the adoption rate of renewables needs to be much higher.
Similarly, despite recent advances, there is still a mismatch in development. Electricity remains the brightest spot for renewables, especially with the growth of solar photovoltaics and wind in recent years.
But electricity accounts for only a fifth of global energy consumption, with most energy use derived from fossil fuels. To ensure sustainability across all sectors, particularly hard-to-electrify industries like shipping and aviation, innovations in fossil fuel replacements, such as biodiesel, are critical.
Intermittency and Storage Solutions
Because replenishables like solar and wind are intermittent, the output of windfarms and solar arrays that harness these sources is also intermittent. Although energy grids are designed to handle intermittency, there are often instances where wind or solar power cannot be used immediately. In these instances, efficient storage capacity is essential to save the excess energy, ready to deploy it to the grid when it is needed.
Advances in battery technology, particularly lithium-ion batteries, are helping to solve this problem. Through increased energy density, devices like these can store energy for longer periods, ready to deploy when demand rises and energy production falls.
Similarly, mechanical storage devices, such as gravity energy storage, can help retain energy generated produced during times of low demand. By using the energy generated to lift heavy objects, gravity energy storage devices use gravitational energy, which can then be converted into electricity when needed. In this way, no energy is wasted.
CFP Energy: Towards a Sustainable Future
At CFP Energy, we are committed to renewable energy sources – from established and emerging biofuels to wind and solar power accessed through Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs).
Leading on some of the key innovations in the energy sector, including bespoke carbon emissions ETS management strategies, we are at the forefront of the energy transition.
To discuss your renewable energy requirements, contact our carbon team today.
Share this post
