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Opportunities, Barriers and Issues with Renewable Energy development – A

discussion

Article  in  Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews · September 2016

DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2016.09.137

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Souvik Sen Sourav Ganguly

Geologix Limited Indian Institute of Science
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 Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 69 (2017) 1170–1181

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/rser

Opportunities, barriers and issues with renewable energy development – A

discussion
Souvik Sena, , Sourav Gangulyb
⁎

a
Geologix Limited, Dynasty Building, Andheri Kurla Road, Andheri East, Mumbai 400059, Maharashtra, India
b
Department of Geological Sciences, Jadavpur University, Kolkata 700032, West Bengal, India

A R T I C L E I N F O A BS T RAC T

Keywords: Energy has come to be known as a ‘strategic commodity’ and any uncertainty about its supply can threaten the
Renewable energy (RE) functioning of the economy, particularly in developing economies. Every society requires energy to meet the
Sustainable developments basic needs. A sustainable socioeconomic development needs secure energy supplies in an affordable rate which
Opportunities have low environmental impacts and low greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However 85% of primary energy
Barriers
demand is met by conventional fossil fuel combustion, which is responsible for 56.6% of anthropogenic GHG
emissions. Renewable energy (RE) forms play an important role in providing sustainable and clean energy
mitigating climate change. In a present scenario, with technological advancements, broaden understanding of
renewable energy knowledge and positive support from governments with favorable promoting policies, RE
forms are developing meeting energy demands in a cleaner way. This paper focuses on the opportunities,
barriers and related issues with the RE developments. These, if taken cared positively, will lead to a sustainable
social and economic development

1. Introduction objectives. The economic, societal and environmental fundamentals

Because of the increase in petroleum prices, especially after the oil
crisis in 1973 and the Gulf War in 1991, geographically reduced
availability of petroleum, and the imposition of more stringent
governmental regulations on exhaust emissions, researchers have
studied alternative fuels and alternative solution methods [63]. When
oil price are low the alternative energy becomes less desired, but when
oil price increase, alternate energy like solar power, and wind power
become good alternatives to oil and gas. Energy quality is an important
factor for the development process [10,14,40]. To achieve sustainable
development, continuous flow of clean and secure energy is required
which has lesser environmental impacts [63]. The fossil fuels fulfills
almost 85% of our cumulative energy needs [64]. It also accounts for
56.6% of GHG emissions (CO2 equivalent) [62]. To achieve sustainable
development without damaging climate system, a major shift in energy
forms is required [39,54]. However RE technologies are growing
continuously and being deployed rapidly, though the RE share of
global energy consumption is small.
Speculation over the likely impact of the oil price drop on the
renewables market has dominated the headlines. However, we must try
to avoid arriving at oversimplified conclusions that assume the two are
mutually exclusive or confuse short-term fluctuations with long-term
underpinning the case for a diversified generation mix to achieve
secure and affordable energy are increasingly coming to the fore,
removing the black and white choice between renewables and conven-
tional fuels. This article focusses on the current renewable energy
initiatives and developments across the globe; opportunities, barriers
and issues related with renewable energy development and potential
countermeasures and policy implications to overcome these issues.
2. Renewable Energy (RE) – present scenario
Theoretical potential of RE largely exceeds all other energy forms.
The absolute size of global technical RE potential is unlikely to
constrain RE deployment [53]. Globally it has been estimated that
RE accounted for 12.9% of total 492 EJ of primary energy supply in
2008. Major RE contributor has been biomass (10.2%) – most of which
is being used for traditional cooking and heating purposes in develop-
ing countries. Hydropower accounted for 2.3% and other RE forms
accounted for 0.4%. A special report on Renewable Energy Sources and
Climate Change Mitigation by [53] states that in 2008, RE contributed
19% of global electricity supply (hydropower 16%, 3% by other RE),
biofuel accounted for 2% of global road transport fuel supply and
biomass, solar and geothermal together contributed to 27% of global

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: souvikseniitb@gmail.com (S. Sen).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2016.09.137
Received 12 June 2015; Received in revised form 1 May 2016; Accepted 30 September 2016
Available online 06 October 2016
1364-0321/ © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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