Renewable energy (Green Energy ) - energy from sustainable sources
Renewable or Regenerative Energy (Green Energy) - Renewable energy is energy from sources that are, in human terms, inexhaustible.
The basic principle of using renewable energy is to extract it from the processes continuously occurring in the environment and make it available for technical applications.
Renewable energy is derived from natural resources such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides and geothermal heat, which are replenished naturally.
Approximately 18 % of the world's energy consumption has been met from renewable energy sources, with 13 % from traditional biomass, such as wood combustion.
Hydroelectricity is the next largest source of renewable energy, providing 3% of global energy consumption and 15% of global electricity generation.
Wind power is growing at around 30%/year, worldwide with installed capacity of 196600 MW in 2010, and is widely used in Europe and the US.
Annual production in the photovoltaic industry reached 6900 MW in 2008.
Solar power plants are popular in Germany and Spain.
Solar thermal plants operate in the USA and Spain, and the largest of these is the 354 MW plant in the Mojave Desert.
The largest geothermal plant in the world is the Geysers plant in California, with a rated capacity of 750 MW.
Brazil has one of the largest renewable energy programmes in the world, involving the production of fuel ethanol from sugar cane.
Ethanol currently covers 18% of the country's vehicle fuel needs.
Fuel ethanol is also widely available in the US.
Wind power converts the kinetic energy of air masses in the atmosphere into electrical, thermal and any other form of energy.
Hydropower specialises in harnessing the potential energy of river water flow formed by upland precipitation.
Tidal energy uses tidal energy, and in fact the kinetic energy of the Earth's rotation.
Wave energy uses the potential energy of waves carried on the surface of the ocean.
Wave power is estimated in kWh/m.
Wave energy has a higher specific power compared to wind and solar energy.
Although similar in nature to tidal, tidal and ocean current energy, wave energy is a different source of renewable energy.
By damming a bay, strait or estuary of a river flowing into the sea (forming a reservoir called a PES basin), a sufficiently high tidal amplitude (over 4 m) can create a head sufficient to rotate hydro turbines and associated hydro generators placed in the dam body.
With one basin and the correct half-day tidal cycle, a PPS can produce electricity continuously for 4-5 hours with 2-1 hour interruptions respectively 4 times/day (such a PPS is called a 1-basin 2-side power plant).
Solar power converts electromagnetic solar radiation into electrical or thermal energy.
Geothermal energy uses water from hot geothermal sources as the heat transfer medium. Due to the absence of the need to heat water, geothermal power plants are to a large extent more environmentally friendly than thermal power plants.
Bioenergy specialises in the production of energy view from biological raw materials.
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