Innovating to Deliver a Clean Energy Future

From lighting and heating to communications and industry, electricity powers our lives. Electricity is now so fundamental that it forms one of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals—some 750 million people are still without access. But with ever-growing demand comes the challenge of sustainability. To electrify our lives without contributing to climate change, the world has turned to cleaner, greener, renewable energies—notably solar, wind, and water. These limitless resources, replenished by nature, are already contributing significantly to our energy mix.

But to meet the urgent demands of halving global emissions by 2030 and reaching net-zero by 2050, forward-thinking energy companies are improving the way we generate energy. For companies like Masdar, a global leader and operator of utility-scale renewable energy projects, the energy transition is about more than accelerating the deployment of renewables—it’s about improving them. From increasing efficiencies to solving energy storage, innovation is driving the transition to a cleaner future by optimising renewable energies.

Hydropower may be the most established of all renewables, contributing around 70 percent of the renewable energy mix , but improvements are still being made. Advances in low-head hydropower enables electricity to be generated from gentle slopes, expanding where hydro can be deployed and making small-scale local generation viable. Meanwhile, advances in hydrological forecasting are helping to manage daily, seasonal, and longer-term water fluctuations—crucial as climate change brings more extreme weather.

Solar is the fastest-growing energy source, its expansion supported by falling costs and constant enhancements. Hexagonal lenses concentrate light to produce a third more energy; thin layers of silicon can increase efficiency 25 percent; and bifacial panels capture sunlight on both sides. In the UAE, the Masdar Solar Hub is pushing solar technology even further. The site tests the latest photovoltaic technologies, establishing the best materials and components, and even evaluating the efficacy of cleaning robots. The hub is also a global centre for developing Concentrated Solar Power, using heliocentric mirrors to concentrate the sun’s rays to make smaller solar sites viable. Such work has supported their development of the world’s largest single-site solar park in the world with a planned capacity of 5,000 megawatts.

The wind turbines that have become a common feature of landscapes and coastlines generate more than six percent of global electricity. But these are evolving: the blades are becoming lighter and longer, while adding a gently curved tip helps them catch lighter winds. Meanwhile, computer modelling of complex wind flows is determining the optimum locations and configurations for windfarms: to catch even stronger winds, airborne wind turbines attached to kites and floating deep-sea wind turbines are being developed. Masdar is a partner in the award-winning Hywind, the world’s first floating offshore windfarm. Hywind’s floating wind turbines, anchored off Scotland at depths up to 120 metres, provide electricity to 22,000 homes while displacing 63,000 tonnes of emissions each year.

Humans have always incinerated rubbish, but waste to energy (WTE) technology puts the energy produced to good use by superheating steam boilers to generate electricity. The process also reduces waste going into landfill by around 90 percent, making it particularly attractive as urban populations grow. Near Sharjah, the UAE’s third largest city, Masdar has built the country’s first WTE power plant. Capable of processing nearly 40 tonnes of municipal waste every hour, it’s highlighting the huge potential of this underutilised resource.

Similarly underutilised is geothermal energy that harnesses heat from the Earth’s core. Geothermal has usually been limited to hydrothermal regions, such as Indonesia, where Masdar’s investment is supporting efforts to double the region’s geothermal capacity. However, the development of Enhanced Geothermal Systems is expanding where geothermal can be used. By injecting fluid to recreate natural fractures deep underground, water can be pumped down, heated up, and used to drive turbines almost anywhere. It’s projected that this could power more than 65 million American homes and businesses.

For renewables, the big challenge is energy storage—regulating an intermittent supply and time shifting when needed. One innovative solution is Green Hydrogen. This uses renewable energy to power the electrolysis of water to extract hydrogen that can be stored, transported, and used as fuel. Touted as the fuel of the future, by 2030 global demand could reach 30 million tonnes per annum. Through a series of strategic projects and scalable platforms, Masdar plans to contribute one million tonnes of green hydrogen each year—perhaps more, as it continues to explore, innovate, and optimise this promising resource.

The renewable energy market is expected to grow 8.4 percent annually to be worth nearly $2,000 billion by the climate change milestone of 2030. But its market value pales next to the cost of not embracing renewable energy. The improvements being made to the renewable energy mix are crucial for achieving the climate change goals laid down by science: the work of innovators to squeeze every watt from renewable energy is essential to our sustainable future.