renewable energy

its trend in Europe

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INTRODUCTION


Renewable Energy can be defined as any form of energy collected from solar, geophysical or biological sources which are naturally replenished. RE allows countries to reach their policy goals for secure, reliable and affordable energy in order to expand electricity access and promote development. This web application was created with the aim of presenting both graphical and discursive aspects of the data related to the production of RE in Europe. Our report shows the Europe's path towards the RE from 2003 to 2013 outlining whether there was a progressive increase of the sources used over the years.

The application is divided mainly in two parts: the first one, Europe, shows Europe's trend considering the total production of RE over a period of 10 years and of the European Union in 2014, year of the adoption of ‘Framework for Climate and Energy’; the second one, RE sources (Renewable Energy sources) allows the user to compare for Gross domestic product (GDP) the production of each type of RE in the 10 richest countries in europe from 2003 to 2013.

Why is renewable energy important for our future?

Developing and exploiting renewable energy sources using modern conversion technologies can be highly responsive to national and international policy goals formulated because of environmental, social, and economic opportunities, objectives, and concerns:
  1. Diversifying energy carriers for the production fuels, electricity, and heat; enhancing energy security; and reducing the long-run price of fuels from conventional sources
  2. Reducing pollution, environmental emissions, and safety risks from conventional energy sources that damage human health, natural systems, crops, and materials
  3. Mitigating greenhouse gas emissions down to levels that can be sustained
  4. Improving access to clean energy sources and conversion technologies, thereby helping to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) while taking advantage of the local availability of renewables
  5. Reducing dependence on and minimizing spending on imported fuels
  6. Reducing conflicts related to the mining and use of limited available natural resources, as most renewable energy sources are well distributed
  7. Spurring economic development, creating new jobs and local employment, especially in rural areas, as most renewable energy technologies can be applied in small-, medium-, and large-scale systems in distributed and centralized application
  8. Balancing the use of fossil fuels, saving them for other applications and for future generations.

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