A history of renewable energy
technology
Bent Sorensen
During most of human history renewable energy
has been the only energy option available. Only
during the last few centuries has fossil and lately
nuclear energy sources been used in a non-
renewable way. They took over because they
seemed much cheaper than the renewable
sources. However, environmental problems of a
local as well as a global magnitude are becoming
evident, and questions are now being raised: are
the fossil and nuclear choices indeed the
cheapest; could a full account of indirect costs be
attempted? In any case, the renewable options
have only been developed in some areas of the
world, and the reasons for their successes and
failures has to be discussed.
Keywords: Renewable energy; History; Technical and economic
evaluation
During practically all the history of life, renewable
energy has been the main source of available energy:
solar radiation provided the heat for suitable habi-
tats on earth, as well as the high-quality energy
needed to grow food and hence furnish human
energy for maintenance and external work, by con-
verting the mechanical energy to heat and eventually
re-radiating it to space as low-quality heat. The
average energy conversion of a human being is 60-
90 W for maintenance and 40-70 W for work and
other activities (ie the equivalent of the electric
power used by a typical incandescent light bulb).
The maximum rate at which a human being can
deliver work is 330 W for periods of a few hours and
2 000 W for durations around one minute. 1
As human civilization took shape, man was able to
expand his energy-use. Fuelwood provided fires
(evidence dating back 350 000 years has been
Bent SCrensen is Technical Director, COWlconsult, Con-
sulting Engineers and Planners, 15 Parallelvej, DK-2800
Lyngby, Denmark, on leave from Institute of Mathematics
and Physics, Roskilde University Center, DK--4000 Ros-
kilde, Denmark.
8 0301-4215/911010008-05 1991 Butterworth-HeinemannLtd
found), and later draught animals came into use
(according to available evidence at least 10 000 years
ago). Solar energy stored in the form of fossil fuels
was probably first used some 9 000 years ago (oil for
lighting). Since the mode of use is non-renewable,
fossil energy is not usually included in the range of
renewable energy forms.
Wind energy was used for sailships in the
Mediterranean region about 5 500 years ago. z Evi-
dence for the use of windmills some 2 500 years ago
in India has been discussed, 3 and the Greek civiliza-
tion probably used solar energy in some minor ways
(Archimedes wrote a book on the use of burning
mirrors, which for example could have been used for
igniting altar fires; solar heated airflows may have
been used for small mechanical devices4). Small-
scale water power was used by Ktesibios (eg a
waterclock around 250 BC) and by Philon (a water-
wheel around 225 BC). 5
The Romans used human power in treadmills, eg
potter's wheels, and hand-operated water pumps. In
the 1st century, Heron of Alexandria played with a
wind-powered organ and a primitive steam engine. 6
European Renaissance brought about a renewed
interest in technology. A number of power-requiring
devices came into common use during the 16th
century, and several energy supply technologies
were advanced, primarily based on muscle power
(Figure 1), wind power (Figure 2) and hydro power.
The following centuries brought about experi-
ments with many energy forms. In Italy, experi-
ments with burning mirrors were carried out, 7 and
the industrial revolution was intimately connected
with the development of the steam engine and the
exploitation of coal, which soon took over the
geographically confined monopoly of water power.
Solar furnaces were further developed during the
18th century, where in 1747, J. Cassini first obtained
temperatures above 1 000C, thus making solar fur-
naces the most practical technology for melting
certain metals, s In 1883 the Ericsson hot air engine
cycle was developed and this opened new possibili-
ties for solar thermal conversion. The solar thermal

Figure 1. Sixteenth century muscle powered pump.
Source Agricola, De re Metallica, 1566.
developments continued into the early 20th century
(Willsie's ammonia cycle engine and Shuman's
large-scale engines in the USA and Egypt). A post-
war parabolic collector in the French Pyrenees,
designed to deliver temperatures above 2 000C, has
been operating for some time, and a number of
research and demonstration facilities has been built
after 1974, particularly in the USA. Solar ponds
have also been researched, particularly in Israel.
The early 20th century saw fierce competition
between coal and wind for producing electric power
(in parts of the world with an established wind
industry, such as Denmark), but wind power lost out
- first on the mainland and later on the smaller
islands. Some emergency power was produced by
wind during the second world war, and at the time of
the Suez crisis some argued that countries depending
on imported fuels for their power production should
establish a strategic wind power reserve. 9 However,
it was not until the fuel embargo of 1973/74, that a
viable wind turbine industry was established, pri-
marily in Denmark, but with its chief market being
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Renewables series - a history o f renewable energy technology
for several years the remote area wind farms estab-
lished in California. Currently wind power seems to
be steadily expanding in the global market, l
The photovoltaic (PV) effect was discovered by
Becquerel in 1839, but solar cell applications did not
gain momentum until 1954, when the Bell Labor-
atories developed successful PV panels in response
to the space programme demands (eg in conjunction
with advanced thermionic converters).ll Later, a
market for small-scale applications of solar cells
developed, and the price-performance ratio has
improved considerably, but not to the level of pen-
etrating into current power plant applications.
Biofuel applications of renewable energy technol-
ogy have been largely confined to biogas production,
partly in primitive devices aimed at developing coun-
try markets, and partly in the form of research,
development and demonstration plants of higher
sophistication. 12 Biomass itself, of course, has pro-
vided (and still does provide) a significant fuel
resource.
P r e s e n t state o f r e n e w a b l e e n e r g y
technology
During most of history as outlined above, renewable
energy really had no competition in the area of
high-quality energy. Therefore, the cost of the con-
version equipment was not much of an issue. The
cost of a windmill or a waterwheel could at most be
Figure 2. Sixteenth century windmill, driving a venting fan
over a mine shaft.
Source Agricola, De re Metallica, 1566
9
Renewables series - a history o f renewable energy technology
compared to that of providing the same power
through draught animals or human labour. In slave-
free Europe, the balance must have tipped in favour
of machine-produced power some time during the
16th century.
When the use of fossil energy became possible on
a large scale, few of the renewable energy techni-
ques could compete. In 1900 solar power was esti-
mated to cost about 10 times that of the competing
fossil power, 13 and although wind power may have
been close to break-even, the fossil energy systems
were soon developed to a degree of firm power
dependability, which the intermittent renewable
sources could only achieve with energy storage facili-
ties (eg batteries), which again brought the total cost
out of range. An exception was hydro power and
remote area applications, the first because it is often
even cheaper than fossil power plants, the second
because the transportation of fossil fuels to remote
locations adds to the cost on their side. Finally,
low-maintenance systems without moving parts,
such as solar cells, are preferred in applications
where repair costs are decisive.
The renewed interest in energy alternatives fol-
lowing the oil embargo of 1973/74 has brought a
range of renewable energy conversion techniques
through a technological development process. Out
of this process a number of technically viable solu-
tions has emerged, while other ideas have fallen
through holes in the sieve. As a result we have today
several proven renewable energy technologies which
will be able to penetrate the marketplace, as soon as
indicated by the price of the alternatives, and pro-
vided that institutional and other distorting barriers
- should they exist - be removed.
The recent rise in fossil fuel prices (due to the
pricing being increasingly determined on the basis of
market value rather than on production cost) has
made some of the new renewable energy systems (eg
for wind conversion) come close to economic break-
even. This trend is expected to continue, because the
full-pricing principle is believed to be applied in the
energy sector. Full costing includes indirect costs
such as the environmental ones, and clearly places a
penalty on fossil fuels due to their contribution to
pollution and to the greenhouse effect, and on
nuclear fuels due to their hazardous potential.
A concurrent result of several investigations is
that optimization of the energy system requires
changes on many levels, and not just on the supply-
side. The demand-side offers many interesting possi-
bilities, ranging from improving the efficiencies of
those energy conversion processes already taking
place, to devising entirely new ways of satisfying a
10
given need at the final stage, and often implying vast
reductions in the amount of energy spent on the way
to the 'end-use'. 14 The implications of demand-side
efforts are particularly important for renewable
energy-use, because the resource intensities (defined
as the maximum energy fluxes of various renewable
energy flows that can be practically harnessed) are
finite and often of the same order of magnitude as
gross demands. For example, the maximum practical
area for collection of solar energy for a building may
be its roof area, implying a maximum yield of
electricity from solar cells and a maximum amount
of heat from solar thermal collectors. If these yields
are small compared to the energy demands of the
building, the solar option would appear less interest-
ing than if they are large or comparable to the
demands. Generally, the greater the variety of re-
newable energy options that become available, the
smaller the energy demand intensity is.
Evolution of institutional contexts
It follows from the discussion above that energy
planning procedures aimed at opening up for renew-
able energy contributions must look first at the way a
society uses energy in a very broad sense, and then
more specifically at the overall efficiency of the
energy conversion system, for various choices re-
garding the mix of supply options.
Energy planning as a government responsibility
emerged in the years following the 1973/74 oil
embargo. Before, some planning efforts were made
in the private energy supply sector and in the
(private or public) utility sector, but only for their
own sectors. The new Departments of Energy being
established in most countries during the late 1970s
first had to establish their authority and gain the
expertise required for this new type of planning.
Outcomes of government planning efforts were
campaigns aimed at raising the energy awareness of
the populations, and the preparation of legislation
aimed at controlling energy use or encouraging the
desired energy use by subsidies/taxes. The cam-
paigns mostly aimed to make people use energy
more sensibly and save energy in cases where no
lowering in comfort would ensue.
Examples of controlling legislation are the new
building standards specifying maximum heat losses
that have become enforced in several countries, and
the minimum energy efficiency requirements for
boilers enforced through annual inspections in coun-
tries such as Denmark. 15 In the encouragement/
discouragement area, efforts have partly included
subsidies to individuals investing in improved effi-
ENERGY POLICY January/February 1991

ciency and renewable energy, also the selective
taxation of those energy sources considered vulner-
able in terms of supply security or possessing nega-
tive environmental impacts.
As an example of considerable success, the Dan-
ish experience is one of substantial economic be-
nefits from the energy efficiency efforts (payback of
investments in less than 10 years, for measures with
an average physical lifetime of 50 years), and prob-
ably a break-even for the renewable energy invest-
ments. An encouragement subsidy of up to 30% was
given to purchasers of renewable energy equipment
with an economic break-even of less than eight years
(this model was chosen in order to avoid the manu-
facturer increasing the price in proportion to the
subsidy). The type of equipment involved was wind
turbines, solar heat panels and biogas digesters. The
physical lifetime of mature renewable energy equip-
ment should be more than eight years, but for the
first generation of products, eight years seems a fair
average. The subsidies have subsequently been
lowered or removed, as the technology reached
viability. Essential in this development has been the
agreement between electric utilities and windmill
owners on a fair price for surplus power sold by the
windmill owner to the grid operator.
Among the failures in the past 15 years of renew-
able energy development has been the attempt to
develop megawatt-scale wind turbines. They are still
less viable than the optimum, currently placed at
around a 200 kW unit size. Advanced biogas plants
have met with many problems, indicating the com-
plexity of the biological processes involved. Rooftop
solar thermal panels have improved performance
and durability and are now viable in many parts of
the world, but power-producing thermal plants are
still uneconomical. The cost of photovoltaic mat-
erials has decreased as much as expected, but solar
cell arrays still have not been able to penetrate into
the utility market, mainly because it has not been
possible to reduce the cost of the support structure
nearly as much as that of the cells themselves.
In many developing countries, renewable energy
equipment has been introduced by donations from
industrialized nations or international aid organiza-
tions. Indigenous development efforts have taken
place in some cases (eg biogas plants in India,
Pakistan and China). Few of these installations have
been operating properly and even fewer have proven
economically viable. Clearly the energy problem in
the developing world cannot in the long run be
solved by imported technology, but only by technol-
ogy transfer. At present it is apparent that infras-
tructure problems make it very difficult to achieve
ENERGY POLICY January/February 1991
Renewables series - a history of renewable energy technology
such a transfer of technology, and the remarks made
above about efficiency before renewable energy are
particularly relevant for developing nations.
Even among the industrialized nations, there are
vast differences in the level of efforts being directed
at using energy efficiently. Also, some would argue
that renewable energy equipment should in most
cases be manufactured locally, in order for economic
viability to manifest itself. I do not believe that this
ought to be an absolute obstacle, because many
other consumer goods are sold world-wide at nearly
the same price, independent of the location of the
manufacturer. For renewable energy equipment, the
running-in problems and lack of local service and
repair facilities have so far lead to very high prices
for equipment sold in countries other than that of
manufacture. If a worldwide market with suitable
local infrastructure can be established, the problem
will go away.
A final point worth mentioning in relation to
renewable energy planning is the issue of decentra-
lization. Energy planning can be made to leave much
more local choice if renewable energy is used. This is
primarily due to the typical unit sizes, and this
applies also for recent advances in other local-scale
technology (eg small combined heat and power
plants using fossil fuels). If large-scale power plants
can be avoided, the planning of local energy systems
can be made much more flexible. Transmission grids
for power and gas or heat are still important in terms
of supply security and stability, and they can be
made to accept a range of renewable energy inputs.
This is important if renewable energy should reach
penetrations so high that storage issues become
important. With fuel- or reservoir-based hydro back-
up, renewable energy penetrations of the order of
50% or more may be achieved without additional
energy storage.16 A 100/o penetration of renewable
energy would require that the fuels for back-up be
biofuels, 17 and the whole energy storage concept
would have to be carefully worked out for a given
geographical area.
lB. SCrensen, Renewable Energy, Academic Press, London, UK,
1979.
2S. Digby, Volume 1 in Singer, Holmyard and Hall, eds, A
History of Technology, Clarendon Press, London, UK, 1954.
3H. Wulff, The Traditional Crafts of Persia, MIT Press, Cam-
bridge, MA, USA, 1966.
4A. and M. Meinel, Applied Solar Energy, Addison-Wesley,
Reading, UK, 1976.
5L. Sprague de Camp, Ancient Engineers, Tamdem Ltd, London,
UK, 1977.
60p cit, Ref 5.
70p cit, Ref 4.
80p cit, Ref 4.
9j. Juul, 'Economy and operation of wind power plants', in
11
Renewables series - a history of renewable energy technology
Proceedings of UN Conference on Alternative Energy Sources,
1961, Vol 7, 1964, pp 399-408.
IB. S0rensen, 'Turning to the wind', American Scientist, Vol 69,
1981, pp 500-508.
110p cit, Ref 1.
12j. Jensen and B. S0rensen, Fundamentals of Energy Storage,
Wiley, New York, USA, 1984.
130p cit, Ref 4.
~4j. NCrg~'d, 'Improved efficiency in domestic electricity use',
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12
S0rensen, 'Energy choices: optimal path between efficiency and
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