Market Transformation to Sustainable Energy

Abstract

If we had every technology we needed to solve our energy problem, the job still wouldn't be finished. Even the best technologies don’t always make it to the marketplace, or if they get to market, they don’t win out in competition with lesser technologies. To achieve sustainable energy, the market itself must be transformed from oil and carbon-based fuels to more sustainable renewable sources and efficient use. The preceding chapters presented lots of technical and economic information about sustainable energy systems, and large-scale and rapid market transformation will fundamentally require economically competitive sustainable energy technologies—the techno-economic solutions. But market transformation depends on more than technical and economic feasibility. It depends on people and institutions making choices to change patterns of energy use, and that is the subject of this chapter.