How could the future be transformed by abundant renewable energy?
A new age of electricity
Electricity is one of the defining issues of our age. It is nearly 150 years since Edison opened the first coal-fired power station at Holborn Viaduct in London, and electricity has been transforming our economy and society ever since. So much of what we use in the modern world relies on electricity, from light bulbs to artificial intelligence, and it has enabled decades of rapid economic growth.
And we are about to become even more reliant on electricity. We are in another age of electrification. Electricity is the most important tool in our efforts to tackle climate change, and it remains one of the key forces underpinning economic growth.
Around 60% of what the UK needs to do to eliminate net carbon emissions can be described in one word: electrification. We need to replace fossil fuels with clean electricity, both in our power stations and in our transport and homes. Electric technologies – renewable energy, electric vehicles, heat pumps – have the great benefit of being far more efficient than their fossil fuel equivalents. Nonetheless, in the future we are going to need a lot more electricity – probably two to three times as much as we have today.
The fight against climate change has tended to focus heavily on energy efficiency. In a world where we need to use far more electricity, we are told, it is vital to use as little of it as possible. Our electricity grid has limited capacity, and we need to manage it carefully. This focus on efficiency is right, up to a point; efficiency is important in the age of electricity, just as it was in the ages of water and coal. But this narrative was largely developed in the time before we developed cheap, abundant forms of renewable energy, when replacing fossil fuels looked set to be a costly endeavour and it made sense to minimise the amount of energy we needed. This narrative needs to be updated for the new age of solar, wind and batteries.
We should aim to use electricity efficiently, but just as importantly, we should aim to use more of it. We can now produce electricity cheaply, abundantly and, crucially, without carbon emissions. We should produce and transmit as much of it as we can, mainly to reduce carbon emissions, but also to drive economic growth and raise living standards.
Other new demands for electricity, besides replacing fossil fuels, have arisen in recent years. Most obviously, the rise of generative AI and related technologies has increased the need for data centres, which consume significant amounts of electricity. Your views on AI – and greater use of large datasets more widely – may be positive or negative, but it is unlikely that this electricity demand is likely to go away. Likewise, cheap, abundant electricity is a key demand for many other industries and businesses across the economy.
Our response to this extra demand can be to try and suppress demand, to ration electricity use or to increase its price. Or we can embrace this new age of electricity and aim to produce as much as we need for all purposes. Doing so gives us the best opportunity to tackle climate change. Abundance can be compatible with a safe climate, as long as it is an abundance of clean energy.
Among people who advocate for energy abundance – including those developing generative AI technologies – there is a range of views on which technologies are best to provide it. Some advocate using more fossil fuels to power data centres. This is both dangerous for the climate and likely to increase costs. Fossil fuels are not only a disaster for the planet, but they are also neither cheap nor abundant.
Others favour a different, more traditional source of clean electricity: nuclear. Many advocates of nuclear power highlight concerns about the intermittent nature of renewable energy. While renewable output varies with the weather, nuclear generally provides a constant amount of power over time. Other sources of firm power – most of them not yet mature, ranging from geothermal and tidal energy to nuclear fusion – also sometimes get brought up by advocates of a “firm power” approach.
Nuclear power can play an important role in balanced electricity grids, but it has a major problem: it is usually quite expensive. In Great Britain, for example, new nuclear comes in at around twice the cost of new renewable energy. Advocating for abundant but expensive electricity is not really advocating for energy abundance at all. If any of these firm power sources – whether traditional or new sources – undergo a price transformation like solar has, this conversation will change again. But unless and until that happens, the best route to energy abundance is right there in front of us: via renewable energy.
Of course, renewable energy is intermittent, as its critics say. But this does not need to be the problem it is sometimes made out to be. In fact, our demand for electricity is highly intermittent too; we use far more electricity in the early evening peak each day than we do in the middle of the night. There are important new developments, both in the falling cost of battery storage and the development of flexible energy use, which can help us match intermittent supply to intermittent demand. The opportunities created by this – particularly the long periods of extremely cheap electricity – are vast.
What we need is a new approach to energy abundance that embraces intermittency and flexibility. If we are to build more clean electricity than we need, we need to find ways to use it, particularly in the periods where it is especially abundant. This paper looks at some of the potential uses of abundant, intermittent electricity, and imagines how they might change the economy in future. To keep the thought experiment simple, we focused on the energy system of the UK.
Most future uses of energy are unpredictable – when the early pioneers of electricity developed light bulbs and telephones, they surely could not have imagined how we’d be using it today. But what we can say – and imagine – is that a future of energy abundance should be better, and greener, than a future of energy scarcity.
So what could we do with a lot of periodic spare energy?
One starting point for using abundant energy is encouraging and meeting pent-up latent demand. Plentiful and cheap energy could help people heat their homes properly, travel more (for business or leisure) and allow businesses to pursue new industrial methods. Another approach, built into some of the National Grid’s future energy scenarios, is to decarbonise as many carbon-heavy industries as possible.
There is also a lot we can do to store excess energy. Electric battery technologies have improved dramatically in recent years, while longer-term storage options from green hydrogen to thermal storage are also being developed. But there is a limit to how much energy it is economical to store.
And what about when it comes to using excess energy, the big excesses of additional energy created when demand is lower and supply is higher? We have explored some more plausible ideas for using this excess energy productively. These are just an indicative sample of the ways in which society and industry could transform to benefit from intermittently abundant clean energy, but hopefully help to indicate what might be possible.
A new age of electricity
Electricity is one of the defining issues of our age. It is nearly 150 years since Edison opened the first coal-fired power station at Holborn Viaduct in London, and electricity has been transforming our economy and society ever since. So much of what we use in the modern world relies on electricity, from light bulbs to artificial intelligence, and it has enabled decades of rapid economic growth.
And we are about to become even more reliant on electricity. We are in another age of electrification. Electricity is the most important tool in our efforts to tackle climate change, and it remains one of the key forces underpinning economic growth.
Around 60% of what the UK needs to do to eliminate net carbon emissions can be described in one word: electrification. We need to replace fossil fuels with clean electricity, both in our power stations and in our transport and homes. Electric technologies – renewable energy, electric vehicles, heat pumps – have the great benefit of being far more efficient than their fossil fuel equivalents. Nonetheless, in the future we are going to need a lot more electricity – probably two to three times as much as we have today.
The fight against climate change has tended to focus heavily on energy efficiency. In a world where we need to use far more electricity, we are told, it is vital to use as little of it as possible. Our electricity grid has limited capacity, and we need to manage it carefully. This focus on efficiency is right, up to a point; efficiency is important in the age of electricity, just as it was in the ages of water and coal. But this narrative was largely developed in the time before we developed cheap, abundant forms of renewable energy, when replacing fossil fuels looked set to be a costly endeavour and it made sense to minimise the amount of energy we needed. This narrative needs to be updated for the new age of solar, wind and batteries.
We should aim to use electricity efficiently, but just as importantly, we should aim to use more of it. We can now produce electricity cheaply, abundantly and, crucially, without carbon emissions. We should produce and transmit as much of it as we can, mainly to reduce carbon emissions, but also to drive economic growth and raise living standards.
Other new demands for electricity, besides replacing fossil fuels, have arisen in recent years. Most obviously, the rise of generative AI and related technologies has increased the need for data centres, which consume significant amounts of electricity. Your views on AI – and greater use of large datasets more widely – may be positive or negative, but it is unlikely that this electricity demand is likely to go away. Likewise, cheap, abundant electricity is a key demand for many other industries and businesses across the economy.
Our response to this extra demand can be to try and suppress demand, to ration electricity use or to increase its price. Or we can embrace this new age of electricity and aim to produce as much as we need for all purposes. Doing so gives us the best opportunity to tackle climate change. Abundance can be compatible with a safe climate, as long as it is an abundance of clean energy.
Among people who advocate for energy abundance – including those developing generative AI technologies – there is a range of views on which technologies are best to provide it. Some advocate using more fossil fuels to power data centres. This is both dangerous for the climate and likely to increase costs. Fossil fuels are not only a disaster for the planet, but they are also neither cheap nor abundant.
Others favour a different, more traditional source of clean electricity: nuclear. Many advocates of nuclear power highlight concerns about the intermittent nature of renewable energy. While renewable output varies with the weather, nuclear generally provides a constant amount of power over time. Other sources of firm power – most of them not yet mature, ranging from geothermal and tidal energy to nuclear fusion – also sometimes get brought up by advocates of a “firm power” approach.
Nuclear power can play an important role in balanced electricity grids, but it has a major problem: it is usually quite expensive. In Great Britain, for example, new nuclear comes in at around twice the cost of new renewable energy. Advocating for abundant but expensive electricity is not really advocating for energy abundance at all. If any of these firm power sources – whether traditional or new sources – undergo a price transformation like solar has, this conversation will change again. But unless and until that happens, the best route to energy abundance is right there in front of us: via renewable energy.
Of course, renewable energy is intermittent, as its critics say. But this does not need to be the problem it is sometimes made out to be. In fact, our demand for electricity is highly intermittent too; we use far more electricity in the early evening peak each day than we do in the middle of the night. There are important new developments, both in the falling cost of battery storage and the development of flexible energy use, which can help us match intermittent supply to intermittent demand. The opportunities created by this – particularly the long periods of extremely cheap electricity – are vast.
What we need is a new approach to energy abundance that embraces intermittency and flexibility. If we are to build more clean electricity than we need, we need to find ways to use it, particularly in the periods where it is especially abundant. This paper looks at some of the potential uses of abundant, intermittent electricity, and imagines how they might change the economy in future. To keep the thought experiment simple, we focused on the energy system of the UK.
Most future uses of energy are unpredictable – when the early pioneers of electricity developed light bulbs and telephones, they surely could not have imagined how we’d be using it today. But what we can say – and imagine – is that a future of energy abundance should be better, and greener, than a future of energy scarcity.
So what could we do with a lot of periodic spare energy?
One starting point for using abundant energy is encouraging and meeting pent-up latent demand. Plentiful and cheap energy could help people heat their homes properly, travel more (for business or leisure) and allow businesses to pursue new industrial methods. Another approach, built into some of the National Grid’s future energy scenarios, is to decarbonise as many carbon-heavy industries as possible.
There is also a lot we can do to store excess energy. Electric battery technologies have improved dramatically in recent years, while longer-term storage options from green hydrogen to thermal storage are also being developed. But there is a limit to how much energy it is economical to store.
And what about when it comes to using excess energy, the big excesses of additional energy created when demand is lower and supply is higher? We have explored some more plausible ideas for using this excess energy productively. These are just an indicative sample of the ways in which society and industry could transform to benefit from intermittently abundant clean energy, but hopefully help to indicate what might be possible.
What might a world of abundant renewable energy look like?
Recycling
Huge machines tower over a half-cleared landfill site, picking through decades of disused material. Piles of sorted metal glint in the sun as they await processing. Gradually, the breeze picks up as forecast and whirring conveyor belts direct the salvaged debris into the recycling plant. Everything is now designed for circularity, and cheap energy means the best recycling methods – however energy-intense – can turn this debris into the highest quality materials. The ‘circular economy’ has come into its own.
Cooling systems
The city sweats under its tenth heatwave this summer, a stark reminder of climate change. Luckily, inside buildings, a cool breeze whispers. Gone are the days of skyrocketing electricity bills and straining air conditioners. Buildings are cooled by a network of systems powered by the wind and sun. Cool air is now a right, not a luxury.
Data processing
The world had begun to give up hope for an HIV/AIDS vaccine. For years, scientists had sweated over lab benches but to no avail. Until some bright spark used a huge computer model to work out just the right approach. Powered by abundant renewable energy, this cutting-edge algorithm crunched the numbers in the background when there was spare electricity. At night when people were asleep, and the wind was blowing or in the middle of the day when there was lots of sunshine. Data was shifted around the country to be processed where power was plentiful. Computing wasn’t fixed in time and space but flowed with the energy.
The future of space
Scientists, having worked for weeks to prepare the necessary groundwork, sit back as sophisticated AI networks register the expected energy windfall and begin to run pre-scheduled calculations in preparation for the space centre’s next venture. A short distance away, the centre’s reservoirs begin to vibrate as electrolysers power up, transforming water into hydrogen ready to convert into rocket fuel. Around the world, rockets launched with this clean fuel rise into space to complete their various missions. Abundant energy has provided the conditions for a booming space economy.
What might a world of abundant renewable energy look like?
Recycling
Huge machines tower over a half-cleared landfill site, picking through decades of disused material. Piles of sorted metal glint in the sun as they await processing. Gradually, the breeze picks up as forecast and whirring conveyor belts direct the salvaged debris into the recycling plant. Everything is now designed for circularity, and cheap energy means the best recycling methods – however energy-intense – can turn this debris into the highest quality materials. The ‘circular economy’ has come into its own.
Cooling systems
The city sweats under its tenth heatwave this summer, a stark reminder of climate change. Luckily, inside buildings, a cool breeze whispers. Gone are the days of skyrocketing electricity bills and straining air conditioners. Buildings are cooled by a network of systems powered by the wind and sun. Cool air is now a right, not a luxury.
Data processing
The world had begun to give up hope for an HIV/AIDS vaccine. For years, scientists had sweated over lab benches but to no avail. Until some bright spark used a huge computer model to work out just the right approach. Powered by abundant renewable energy, this cutting-edge algorithm crunched the numbers in the background when there was spare electricity. At night when people were asleep, and the wind was blowing or in the middle of the day when there was lots of sunshine. Data was shifted around the country to be processed where power was plentiful. Computing wasn’t fixed in time and space but flowed with the energy.
The future of space
Scientists, having worked for weeks to prepare the necessary groundwork, sit back as sophisticated AI networks register the expected energy windfall and begin to run pre-scheduled calculations in preparation for the space centre’s next venture. A short distance away, the centre’s reservoirs begin to vibrate as electrolysers power up, transforming water into hydrogen ready to convert into rocket fuel. Around the world, rockets launched with this clean fuel rise into space to complete their various missions. Abundant energy has provided the conditions for a booming space economy.
Deep dive 1: recycling
Our demand for materials of all sorts – from sand to rare earth metals – is vast. While we can sometimes find new, natural sources for these materials, this has environmental costs. And sometimes new sources are not available: some aspects of the natural world are finite. Another option is to recycle more, and abundant energy could enable this.
Deep dive 1: recycling
Our demand for materials of all sorts – from sand to rare earth metals – is vast. While we can sometimes find new, natural sources for these materials, this has environmental costs. And sometimes new sources are not available: some aspects of the natural world are finite. Another option is to recycle more, and abundant energy could enable this.
Increased consumption and tighter restrictions around international waste trading already mean the UK will need better ways of dealing with material waste domestically. Meanwhile, in the long term, the UK will need to move towards a circular economy as raw materials become more scarce and costly and as we seek to reduce emissions from waste. While lots of things will need to change to realise this, intermittent abundant energy might be useful in several ways:
First, selling recycled material which has been processed at low cost in periods of excess energy. Although typically less energy-intensive than processing new materials (estimates suggest recycled plastics require 75% less energy than producing new plastics), using excess energy for recycling waste could keep running costs low. The recycling industry is sensitive to energy price changes, with energy costs of plastics recycling rising from 15-20% up to 70% of operational expenditure during the 2022 energy price hikes, according to an internal survey by Plastic Recyclers Europe. This could mean that it is cost-effective to recycle more material than ever (although the main barriers to recycling more are not energy costs but technical challenges and consumer behaviour), or more advanced (energy-intensive) recycling processes could become more widespread.
Sweden’s use of renewables in recycling
There are already some attempts at green waste management around the world by using renewable energy to power recycling and other waste processing. Sweden’s ‘Site Zero’ is the largest plastics recycling plant in Europe, with capacity for over 200,000 tonnes of plastic recycling annually (enough to recycle all of Sweden’s recyclable plastic waste). It claims to be powered by renewable energy, but it is not clear how: in time, it will supposedly be powered by on-site solar PVs, but this claim may also rely on the fact that high proportions of Swedish electricity are generated by renewables. Most recycling plants run off the same power sources as other manufacturers or industrial processes in the area – this is usually the grid system.
Second, mining the UK’s 20,000 existing landfills using green energy. There could be economic potential in ‘mining’ old reserves of waste that could actually hold valuable materials: 2019 research into samples from 4 landfill sites led to estimations that across just those sites there could be $400 million of copper and aluminium.
Third, powering the recycling of renewable energy infrastructure components. In a renewable energy future, infrastructure will be needed in vast quantities: for instance, it has been estimated that the world will need 32 times its current offshore wind capacity. Projections from 2021 indicated that over the next 10 years, waste from end-of-life clean energy infrastructure was expected to grow up to 30-fold.
Not all industrial uses of renewable energy will be suited to operating sporadically, but using cheap renewable energy to process recycling at low cost is a plausible way of using excess energy at the point of generation. Using more energy rather than less in more advanced thermal or chemical processes can improve the quality of recycled materials. Cheap, renewable energy could fuel these processes during periods of abundance, if materials are amassed continually and processed during gluts of energy.
With enough space to collect and store recyclable materials to process when energy is cheap, recycling only during periods of excess energy is theoretically possible. During long lower-energy periods, finite space may become a constraining factor (the UK produced 222.2 million tonnes of waste in 2018; although not all of this would be recycled, this would take a vast amount of space to store!). However, in a circular economy, the recycled material produced from this waste might be a valuable input to another production process further down the circular supply ‘chain’, which might be more time-sensitive.
Deep dive 2: cooling systems
Cooling, essential in hot climates and for industrial uses, will grow even more critical as climate change intensifies. Currently, traditional cooling methods like air conditioners and electric fans already consume about 20% of the electricity in buildings globally. Higher temperatures and lack of access to cooling will impact labour productivity: heat stress will lead to more than 2% loss of total working hours worldwide every year by 2030, highlighting the urgent need for large-scale cooling solutions.
Deep dive 2: cooling systems
Cooling, essential in hot climates and for industrial uses, will grow even more critical as climate change intensifies. Currently, traditional cooling methods like air conditioners and electric fans already consume about 20% of the electricity in buildings globally. Higher temperatures and lack of access to cooling will impact labour productivity: heat stress will lead to more than 2% loss of total working hours worldwide every year by 2030, highlighting the urgent need for large-scale cooling solutions.
The good news, however, is that the demand for cooling will increasingly tend to correlate with the supply of solar power. The hottest places also tend to be those with the best potential for solar power; cooling tends to be needed most when the sun is shining. The sun could help to keep us cool as well as warm.
Alongside traditional air conditioning (which can also provide heating), there is the option for district-level cooling systems.
Enhanced district cooling systems, combined with advanced thermal storage, could efficiently manage cooling needs. These systems can adapt to the intermittent supply of renewable energy. Cities like Toronto, Stockholm, and Doha utilise this type of system with a centralised cooling plant to produce chilled water or air, distributed to buildings through underground pipes. Integrating thermal storage, such as the world’s first commercial-scale liquid air energy storage plant in the UK, which requires substantial energy to cool air until it liquefies and stores liquid air, allows the system to use excess cooling capacity during off-peak hours. The system in Singapore has proven to shift cooling demand by a few hours, avoiding a surge, which mitigates the intermittency of renewable energy. This mitigates the effects of irregular energy sources and manages peak cooling demand.
Other, more radical and controversial approaches to cooling could also be enabled by abundant energy. Geoengineering techniques, such as cloud seeding and marine cloud brightening, offer regional cooling despite their high energy requirements. China employed cloud seeding during a record-breaking heatwave in 2022, while the UAE has tackled hot weather with cloud seeding since 2021. Cloud seeding increases cloud cover by releasing electric charges or inducing condensation with lasers, both energy-intensive processes. For instance, laser-induced condensation needs high-power lasers generating pulses of intensity equivalent to 1,000 power plants, enhancing precipitation and localised cooling. Marine cloud brightening involves emitting sea salt aerosols into the tropical marine boundary layer to increase cloud reflectivity and reflect solar radiation back into space. Certain forms of this technique would require an estimated 1% of annual fossil fuel consumption.
Geoengineering, particularly cloud seeding, could be used flexibly. Although cloud seeding requires precise timing to match favourable weather conditions, by using long-term and short-term forecasting models, operations can be scheduled to take advantage of times when renewable energy is plentiful. This strategic planning allows cloud seeding to cope more effectively with energy intermittency, making it a more adaptable cooling solution.
Whether these geoengineering approaches are a good or a bad idea is open to debate – and this article should not be taken as Nesta endorsing them – but there is no doubt that abundant energy will increase what is possible in this area.
Deep dive 3: data processing
Data centres are becoming increasingly important consumers of electricity. In 2024, they used around 1.5% of the global supply and this is expected to more than double by 2030, mostly due to the growth of Artificial Intelligence (AI). In Ireland, which has one of the highest concentrations of computing power per person, data centres use about a fifth of electricity.
Deep dive 3: data processing
Data centres are becoming increasingly important consumers of electricity. In 2024, they used around 1.5% of the global supply and this is expected to more than double by 2030, mostly due to the growth of Artificial Intelligence (AI). In Ireland, which has one of the highest concentrations of computing power per person, data centres use about a fifth of electricity.
Many of the tasks of data centres, such as handling computer games or video calls, require power on demand. As a result, some tech companies have focused on developing 'firm' power sources, such as nuclear fission and fusion, alongside more old-fashioned fossil fuel approaches.
However, there is also scope for many data processing tasks to use energy more flexibly. Some tasks, such as certain aspects of AI training and large-scale data analytics, are less time sensitive. This means, at least in principle, data centres can do these jobs when or where there is excess renewable electricity.
Data can be easier to move around than electricity, which opens the possibility of a more distributed system. If there are multiple data centres, each nearer different sorts of renewables or spaced far enough apart that their generation patterns aren’t closely aligned, then data can be moved for processing to where there is an abundance of supply. Tech companies are already shifting computing tasks to places that allow them to take advantage of greener power. This might be done more effectively if combined with edge computing, where data is processed closer to its source.
When consumer behaviour is predictable, it might also be possible to do some computation in advance of when it is needed. Take videos, which account for 75% of web traffic. These often need to be transcoded from one resolution to another, which could be done ahead of time. This idea lies at the heart of information batteries that address energy intermittency by shifting data processing to times when renewable energy is abundant. Excess energy is used for computations, which are stored as "results" to be utilised when the energy supply dips. Already, Google shifts the timing of less urgent computing tasks, such as creating new filter features on photos or new words for Google Translate.
A more controversial use case proposed by software company Square and investment firm Ark might be for cryptocurrency miners to serve as the user of last resort for abundant but intermittent renewable energy. The process of creating certain cryptocurrencies (mining) uses lots of electricity, and it generally doesn’t matter exactly when this happens. Cryptocurrency miners might therefore buy up excess electricity generated by renewables. Of course, there are concerns that, in practice, cryptocurrencies are too closely associated with financial speculation and scams rather than generating real benefits for people, so they might be seen as a dubious use of abundant power.
While tech companies are exploring other ways to power data centres, the ability to move data around and predict its use offers an opportunity to harness abundant but intermittent renewable energy.
Deep dive 4: the future of space
New, space-based economic opportunities could provide productive avenues for using excess energy. While grand visions of terraforming planets are not (at this point in time) credible, abundant renewable energy could make existing known technologies that enable operations to support space travel (and by extension, other space-based activities) cheaper.
Deep dive 4: the future of space
New, space-based economic opportunities could provide productive avenues for using excess energy. While grand visions of terraforming planets are not (at this point in time) credible, abundant renewable energy could make existing known technologies that enable operations to support space travel (and by extension, other space-based activities) cheaper.
Solar energy was first widely utilised in space on satellites and is already used to power critical space operations. The International Space Station is currently solar-powered, although that supply is not subject to intermittency, given there is no weather in space. The Kennedy Space Centre also partly operates using solar power. Could cheap, abundant renewable energy not only power routine terrestrial support operations but also be productively used during times of excess to further our exploration of space?
The obvious use case would be converting renewable energy into powerful rocket fuels to launch more rockets at a lower cost. Hydrogen, which can be cleanly produced using renewable energy through electrolysis, is a key component of ‘Hydrolox’, a common fuel for rockets. The European Space Agency has ambitions for green hydrogen-powered rockets, and plans to supply 12% of fuel needs for Ariane 6 rockets with green hydrogen by 2026. Green fuel doesn’t necessarily mean totally environmentally-friendly – rocket greenhouse gases are more damaging than other emissions because they are emitted in different layers of Earth’s atmosphere, and even the water vapour produced by Hydrolox (considered a clean fuel) has negative environmental impacts when emitted in rocket ‘contrails’.
Another potential use of energy is in powering elaborate computations and calculations to support further technological and scientific exploration of space, as discussed in the section above on data centres. This can be energy-intensive work, and might be able to cope with intermittency, such as by saving expensive computational tasks for periods of cheap, abundant energy.
There are several limitations to using intermittent excess energy for space. First, as with other uses of energy, anything relating to the safety of people exploring space, or supporting space operations, should not be reliant on irregular energy if it could place people at risk. Second, finite energy can be stored and transported into space, so without long-distance energy transmission (eg, energy beaming), space-based operations might not immediately be a credible use case for intermittent excess energy. If space exploration can secure a consistent supply of regular, space-generated solar energy, this could eventually become preferable to terrestrially-produced electrical renewable energy because it’s not subject to weather and climate patterns.
What can we learn from these ideas?
A much more detailed analysis would be required to make these applications of abundant energy a reality. But we have identified seven useful takeaways from thinking in more detail about a future powered by sporadically abundant renewable energy.
Finding intermittent uses for excess energy is necessary for stable energy prices
High upfront costs of renewable generation are offset by low marginal costs when systems are up and running. This causes concern that overcapacity could become an ‘economic liability’; fluctuation in demand and supply could also cause price volatility. At periods of excess supply, excessively low- or even negative-energy prices could harm profits, the prospect of which is dissuading investors. Adopting an ‘abundance mindset’ creates an imperative for using excess energy at the point of generation to flatten the curve. Finding more intermittent but productive uses for energy – like those explored above – therefore, has the potential to stabilise renewable energy prices.
Abundance challenges the current ‘energy hierarchy’
The current energy hierarchy, built on scarcity and fossil fuels, prioritises minimising consumption. However, a future brimming with abundant renewable energy fundamentally alters this paradigm. The role of energy in human cultural evolution is not about the energy ceiling but the efficiency floor, fueling technological advancement and innovations. Our cases illustrate that with renewable energy abundance, the focus should shift from relentless saving to efficient and impactful utilisation. This doesn't mean throwing efficiency out of the window. Instead, it's about strategically deploying energy to enhance productivity and well-being. This shift unlocks a future where energy fuels progress and justice, not frugality.
The ‘energy hierarchy’
The energy hierarchy is an influential framework for thinking through decisions that relate to energy consumption, sustainably. It ranks the sustainability of approaches to energy usage from most sustainable (energy demand reduction, followed by energy efficiency) to least sustainable (using non-renewable but low-GHG-producing energy sources and using conventional GHG-producing energy sources). The paper justifying the framework argues that demand reduction is the way to ensure zero greenhouse gas emissions, raising issues around the wider sustainability of renewable energy production.
There are a number of ways in which the energy hierarchy has already been challenged. Jevons’ paradox is a concept used to challenge the notion that increases in energy efficiency result in reduced fuel use, on the grounds that consumption rises outweigh the reduced fuel use of any efficiency gains. There have also been rebuttals to the idea that energy demand should be reduced before renewable energy is provided to meet needs in recent works like ‘A Theory of Everyone’ by Michael Muthukrishna and ‘Electrify’ by Saul Griffiths.
The predictability of energy intermittency will have a big impact on our energy use
The risks of energy intermittency are one of the key concerns with a renewable energy future. The predictability of renewable energy flows – based on precise forecasting of the weather patterns that will enable generation – becomes important for planning productive use of excess energy where systems need to be switched on and off. This could become automated in future using AI – building on current innovations in ‘smart grids’ and energy flexibility systems. Embracing and managing intermittency (particularly at a seasonal level) might feel counterintuitive at first, since it’s unlike many progressive and technological developments which have gone some way to eliminating the impact of seasons.
Energy abundance might motivate more serious efforts to transition to a circular economy
It’s plausible that energy abundance could be a catalyst for a circular economy. While researching our case studies, we explored how current innovations to integrate critical facilities – like data processing centres providing heat for district networks – show a trend towards whole system circularity.
However, another observation is that the abundance of one key input (energy) could throw the scarcity of other inputs (material resources) into new relief. Taking recycling as an example: if excess energy is productively used to manage waste more cheaply, this also results in the production of materials for reuse. Cheap supplies of recycled materials could be more valuable in a future in which the natural planetary reserves are depleted, increasingly scarce, and therefore costly. The credibility of material scarcity concerns based on lack of supply has been challenged (notably by the bet on the long-term price of commodities that economist Julian Simon won against biologist Paul Ehrlich who suggested earth’s resources would become unsustainably costly with demand from a rapidly growing population, while Simon argued that people would find new means of supplying resources to meet demand via increasingly innovative means). However, recycling and circularity could be the innovations to secure stable material supplies in future.
Abundance and the environmental paradox
Energy abundance highlights an interesting potential paradox of a particular form of green economics that "solves" one environmental challenge but then inadvertently pushes it elsewhere. An abundance of energy could lead to higher consumption of other, more limited, resources as we find productive ways to use excess energy. Vaclav Smil’s work explores the limits of material resources in the world, arguing for better quantification of resource use and, ultimately, ‘dematerialisation’ (or increased efficiency – doing more with less).
In addition to material scarcity concerns, experts have highlighted other ‘green’ or environmental challenges that energy abundance might pose (or aggravate), for example, the impact of expanded energy use on biodiversity, or non-energy-source-related emissions.
Managing abundant and variable renewable energy could place more attention on energy injustice
As abundant renewable energy disrupts the energy hierarchy, energy justice should take centre stage. Traditionally, energy justice often focused on accessibility and affordability, such as ensuring basic needs like cooling are met. However, with abundant clean energy potentially becoming more accessible, energy justice in an abundant future should be redefined, with attention shifting from simply getting energy to communities to what action they can take to benefit from this new energy landscape. Procedural justice and distributive justice would become more significant. New pricing structures for intermittent renewables could create a knowledge gap between grassroots consumers, more educated consumers and energy suppliers. Transparent decision-making is crucial to ensure everyone understands, participates and benefits from the economic and social opportunities clean energy brings, and is empowered to shape the future energy landscape.
What do we mean by ‘energy injustice’?
Energy justice “refers to the concepts of equity, affordability, accessibility and participation in the energy system and energy transition regardless of race, nationality, income or geographic location”. Energy injustice is simply the inverse.
What often gets the most attention are price and accessibility, particularly in a cost-of-living crisis. But there is more to energy justice than that. Where energy infrastructure is located, how critical minerals for the energy transition are obtained and who is most impacted by any pollution are just some examples of energy choices that can be more or less fair.
New economic geographies could emerge
One of the benefits of fossil fuel or nuclear power plants is that they can be built nearly anywhere. By contrast, renewable energy generation is much more spatially constrained, depending on weather patterns. The areas of the UK with the most renewable energy potential, particularly wind potential, are concentrated in different parts of the country from our current economic centres, particularly in coastal areas. Parts of northern Scotland already produce far more renewable energy than they can use, while many parts of the UK have to import electricity from surrounding areas. Rather than developing expensive transmission networks capable of coping with significant spikes in energy, using excess energy at or close to the source would make practical sense, but relies on the co-location of human and industrial capital. Energy could well play a key role in shaping economic geography in the future.
Protecting domestic energy security and resilience will still be important in an abundant renewable energy future, due to the irregularity of supply
Renewable energy demands a focus on local production and supply, which can bolster energy security and resilience. Recent geopolitical instability highlights the vulnerability of relying on external sources. Imagine a future where data centres, vital to service-based economies like the UK, generate localised edge data processing power with on-site renewables. This not only reduces reliance on an unpredictable grid but also fosters data sovereignty.
What’s next?
Abundant renewable energy and the various systems to use excess energy intermittently may seem far away, yet most of the technologies needed to make it happen already exist. Abundant but intermittent energy is a future with advantages and challenges, and it is one plan for it. To seize the future opportunities that abundant energy could provide, we need action – and investment – now to set in motion the transformation at the required scale.
This requires optimism. To reframe the energy transition debate, we’ll need to see a shift of narrative and action at the political level for this to cut through and give businesses and investors confidence. Yet from recycling to cooling, there are tangible examples of how and where this energy might be used that offer meaningful economic and social benefits. At present, energy is a contentious topic that prompts anger and debate. Embracing energy abundance could change that, gradually, replacing fear and scarcity with opportunity and abundance.
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