The energy transition and sustainable development face multiple challenges. For starters, the challenge of ensuring that the public and policymakers learn from scientific and factual evidence and modify their views and consumption patterns accordingly.
However, even if the world is fully convinced of the environmental risks of continuing current trends, the task is enormous. It involves the timely transformation of the energy system, in a complex and potentially time-consuming process.
O energy system takes advantage of natural resources and transforms them into energy vectors that are used by devices and machines that provide energy services, such as heat, refrigeration and transport, among others. Providing energy services to current and future generations requires sustainable energy systems.
It is widely recognized that many of the technologies needed to support sustainable development are already available. The question is how to improve these technologies, accelerate cost reductions and achieve significant changes by integrating these technologies into sustainable development projects, which respond to specific local and sectoral needs, and provide incentives and mechanisms for rapid innovation, dissemination and sharing of knowledge.
As energy systems have multiple interactions with the economy, society and the environment (including interrelationships with other physical resource and commodity systems), the only way to create sustainability in the energy system is to introduce management sustainable development of these economic, social and environmental interactions.
A scenario of local challenges
The real challenge for Portugal may not lie in the availability of renewable energy resources, but in their connection, transport and distribution. Investing in a high level of electrification, in a country where electricity prices are high, may prove to be a considerable requirement for consumers.
Portugal has some of the highest electricity costs for households in the EU, despite relatively low income levels by the region's standards. A high percentage of this price is made up of fees and various taxes.
Furthermore, in the production context, grid connections have been and continue to be an obstacle due to lack of availability and the complexity of licensing procedures. The success of tenders for photovoltaic solar energy in Portugal, which stood out worldwide, largely reflects the inclusion of guaranteed connections to the grid.
Portugal has vast wind and solar resources, but remains relatively isolated from the rest of Europe, which makes it difficult to inject renewable electricity into Central European grids. In March 2018, Portugal produced more electricity from renewable energy than it actually needed. This was the first time in the XNUMXst century that the amount of electricity produced exceeded consumption. However, the lack of energy connections with the rest of Europe remains a challenge. Without a properly connected electrical grid or a well-developed storage system, part of this energy ends up wasted.
