A new wave of electrification
Throughout history, electrified technologies have come and gone. In the early days of the automotive industry, electric and gasoline powered cars were head to head, with an electric vehicle holding the vehicular land speed record until around the year 1900. In agriculture, the production of artificial fertilizers was powered by electricity before switching to natural gas in the 1960’s. In the absence of an understanding of the effects carbon emissions, the fossil route more often than not proved the most competitive.
With fossil free electricity becoming more competitive on a global scale, the tables are turning in favour of electric solutions. Investments in renewable energy are now double that of investments in traditional (fossil) energy sources, and the International Energy Agency in 2016 calculated the average cost for the energy produced to be USD 60/MWh for wind, USD 100/MWh for solar and between USD 50-170/MWh for fossil sources of energy.
Renewable energy has become more affordable and electrification is one of the solutions that can help keeping global warming to 1.5 C degrees below pre-industrial levels.
