Renewable Energy | Definition, Types, Advantages & Limitations

By | March 25, 2019

What is renewable energy?

Before moving on to the definition of renewable energy we should first know that there are two types of energy sources.

  1. Non-renewable sources of energy
  2. Renewable sources of energy

Definition of renewable energy

Renewable energy is a source of energy which can be replenished in human timescale (i.e. during the life cycle of a human). For example, wind energy and solar energy.

Contrary to renewable energy non-renewable energy sources take a very long time to replenish. For example, formation of fossil fuels takes millions of years.

renewable energy

Types of renewable energy

There are basically fives types of renewable energy sources. They are

  1. Wind power
  2. Hydro power
  3. Solar energy
  4. Geothermal energy
  5. Bio energy

Importance of renewable energy

Since we have limited amount of fossil fuel and that is reducing day by day. After some time, it will become necessity of human beings to depend on renewable energy.

Advantages of renewable energy

There are several advantages of renewable energy, some of them are.

  • It is a source of clean energy
  • It is renewable (obviously) and hence will never run out
  • It is reliable and stable
  • No harmful emissions to environment
  • It can give energy independence

Limitations of renewable energy

Some limitations or disadvantages of renewable energy are.

  • Efficiency of energy conversion is still very low
  • Initial investment is very high
  • Still we have not utilized its full capacity
  • Not all the forms of renewable energy are commercially viable
  • Some forms of renewable energies (like wind power) are location specific
  • Many forms of renewable energies require power storage capacity
  • Some forms of renewable energies (like wind power farm or solar energy farm) require massive space to operate

Featured image attribution: By Kenueone – https://pixabay.com/en/electricity-sun-wind-1330214/, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=50505011

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