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Ethan Zindler is Head of Americas at Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), the definitive source of insight, data and news on the transformation of the energy economy. Zindler manages the company’s analyst and commercial teams in New York, Washington, San Francisco and Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Ahead of his speaker appearance at GLOBE Capital 2019, Zindler shares his insights on the future of clean energy, including the top three trends to watch out for in 2019.
By 2050, we estimate over $11 trillion will be invested in energy power generation and power storage assets, and around 85 percent of that investment will go to zero-carbon generation. This represents a very sizable potential opportunity. The estimate is based on our long-term New Energy Outlook, which is a projection established on the trajectories we’ve seen in the learning curves of relevant technologies, as well as the progress we’ve seen over the last 10 to 15 years. It is not founded on assumptions about relevant new policies.
We’re now in a much more interesting period in which we see legitimate cost competition between zero-carbon sources of energy and incumbent fossil generation, and that’s exciting. It’s game on in terms of competition between technologies, and that competition can take place on an entirely unsubsidized basis.
The question is: When will we reach the point where this is no longer a competition, and clean energy technologies are the clear-cut winners and the cheapest in the market? We predict it will start to take place sometime between the middle and the end of the next decade.
As this group of people moves beyond basic energy access, the potential is there to do it cleanly, as solar, wind, microgrids, and other technologies render the concept of a hub-and-spoke grid outdated. The potential for addressing energy access issues—and addressing it without contributing to climate change—is very exciting.
Previously posted on GLOBE Series.
Image credit: Sweet Ice Cream Photography via Unsplash
Carolyn Johnson is Marketing Manager at <a href="https://www.globeseries.com/about-us/">GLOBE Series</a>, a group of organizations, innovators and leaders dedicated to the development of a clean economy.
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