Prysmian Energy Transition

Prysmian Group | Energy transition - White paper 2021 5 | Scenario - Key challenges and opportunities The race tomeet ambitious energy transition goals Never in history has an energy transition been attempted so quickly and under such dramatic conditions. What is an “energy transition”? The International Renewable Energy Agency, IRENA, defines it as “a pathway toward transformation of the global energy sector from fossil-based to zero-carbon by the second half of this century”. Throughout history, societies have gradually transitioned away fromone energy source – say, fromwood to coal. Now in the space of just a few decades, countries across the world are working to replace fossil fuels with zero-carbon energy from clean sources like wind, solar and hydro to halt an unprecedented increase in temperature that major international scientific bodies have linked to carbon emissions from fossil fuels. Why is the energy transition important? In today’s changing landscape for the electricity production, players attention is focused on environmental conservation and low carbon economy pushing to the development of many renewable projects worldwide and increasing reliance on renewable energy sources, such as hydro, wind (offshore and onshore), solar (photovoltaic and concentrated solar power), biomass, geothermal and tidal. Slowing global warming is urgent because of its devastating impact on both nature and human beings. The impacts on nature are already visible and include rising sea levels, and extreme weather events like floods, droughts and brushfires. For human beings, the health consequences of higher temperatures in the future could be severe, and issues of food security and migration could have dramatic political consequences and even lead to civil unrest. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change, warns that global warming from pre-industrial levels must not exceed 1.5°C in order to avoid irreparable damage to the planet. That’s why 196 countries joined forces in 2015 with a pledge to slow global warming by cutting emissions and other steps by signing the Paris Agreement, the world’s first comprehensive climate change agreement. The goal is to hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C. These goals cannot bemet without achieving the energy transition. According to the IPCC, 42% of C02 emissions come fromelectricity and heat production. A further 2%come fromagriculture, forestry and other land use. Industry accounts for 19%and transportation 25%. Additionally, energy security is a parallel topic, as countries fromEU and Asia are heavily dependent on imports and continuously threatened by the risk of disruptions in supply linked to geopolitical tensions, weather events, accidents, terrorist activities.

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