Social, Economic, and Environmental Impacts of Renewable Energy Resources

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
Chapter
Social, Economic, and
Environmental Impacts of
Renewable Energy Resources
MaheshKumar
Abstract
Conventional energy source based on coal, gas, and oil are very much helpful
for the improvement in the economy of a country, but on the other hand, some bad
impacts of these resources in the environment have bound us to use these resources
within some limit and turned our thinking toward the renewable energy resources.
The social, environmental, and economical problems can be omitted by use of
renewable energy sources, because these resources are considered as environment-
friendly, having no or little emission of exhaust and poisonous gases like carbon
dioxide, carbon monooxide, sulfur dioxide, etc. Renewable energy is going to be
an important source for power generation in near future, because we can use these
resources again and again to produce useful energy. Wind power generation is
considered as having lowest water consumption, lowest relative greenhouse gas
emission, and most favorable social impacts. It is considered as one of the most
sustainable renewable energy sources, followed by hydropower, photovoltaic, and
then geothermal. As these resources are considered as clean energy resources, they
can be helpful for the mitigation of greenhouse effect and global warming effect.
Local employment, better health, job opportunities, job creation, consumer choice,
improvement of life standard, social bonds creation, income development, demo-
graphic impacts, social bonds creation, and community development can be achieved
by the proper usage of renewable energy system. Along with the outstanding advan-
tages of these resources, some shortcomings also exist such as the variation of output
due to seasonal change, which is the common thing for wind and hydroelectric power
plant; hence, special design and consideration are required, which are fulfilled by the
hardware and software due to the improvement in computer technology.
Keywords: conventional energy resources, social, environmental, economical,
hydropower, photovoltaic, geothermal
. Introduction
Renewable energy is going to be an important source for power generation in the
near future, because we can use these resources again and again to produce useful
energy. The energy resources are normally classified as fossil resources, renew-
able, and nuclear energy resources. Different renewable energy resources, like
hydropower, wind, solar, biomass, ocean energy, biofuel, geothermal, etc., provide
15–20% of the total world’s energy. The world is going to turn into a global village
due to more requirement of energy due to fast growing population, which leads to

Wind Solar Hybrid Renewable Energy System

the use the fossil fuels like coal, gas, and oil to fulfill the energy requirement, which
creates unsustainable situations and many problems like depletion of fossil fuels,
environmental and geographical conflicts, greenhouse effect, global warming,
and fluctuation in fuel prices. Due to environment-friendly and less emission of
gases from renewable energy, it is considered as sustainable energy; also supported
for the society from each dimensions like economic, social and environmental.
“Approximately 1.6 billion people have no access to electricity and about 1.1 bil-
lion are without water supply” [1]. Renewable energy resources have an ability to
complete the world’s energy demand, protect the environment, and provide energy
security. Along with the outstanding advantages of these resources, some short-
comings also exist like the variation of output due to seasonal change, which is the
common thing for wind and hydroelectric power plant; hence, special design and
consideration are required, which are fulfilled by the hardware and software due to
the improvement in computer technology. The main renewable energy sources with
their usage in different form are classified in Table , and it is expected that renew-
able energy will be one of the important sources for the future; the world’s renew-
able energy sources scenario by 2040 is estimated as given in Table .
Energy resource Energy conversion and usage option
Hydropower Power generation
Biomass Heat and power generation, pyrolysis, gasification, digestion
Geothermal Urban heating, power generation, hydrothermal, hot rock
Solar Solar home system, solar dryers, solar cookers
Direct solar Photovoltaic, thermal power generation, water heaters
Wind Power generation, wind generators, windmills
Wave Numerous designs
Tidal Barrage, tidal stream
Table 1.
Main renewable energy sources with their usage form [2].
    
Total consumption (million tons equivalent) 10,038 10,549 11,425 12,352 13,310
Biomass 1080 1313 1791 2483 3271
Large hydro 22.7 266 309 341 358
Geothermal 43.7 86 186 333 493
Small hydro 9.5 19 49 106 189
Wind 4.7 44 266 542 688
Solar thermal 4.1 15 66 244 480
Photovoltaic 0.1 224 221 784
Solar thermal electricity 0.1 0.4 316 68
Marine (tidal/wave/ocean) 0.05 0.1 0.4 320
Total RES 1365,5 1745,5 2964,4 4289 6351
Renewable energy contribution source (%) 13.6 16.6 23.6 34.7 47.7
Table 2.
Global renewable energy scenario by 2040 [3].


Social, Economic, and Environmental Impacts of Renewable Energy Resources
DOI: hp://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89494
. Background
The economy of Pakistan has been variable and unstable for a long time, but
it started to grow somehow since 1990s. Energy demand also increased, as the
economy of the country increased. To fulfill the energy demand, oil, natural gas,
and coal are used, but due to limited resources, Pakistan is forced to import oil
and gases from U.A.E and Saudi Arabia. The location of Pakistan is very good for
getting benefit from the sun to generate power, and there are also some places
suitable for wind power generation in Pakistan. However, the main problem
to generate power is the funding. The energy overview of Pakistan is given in
Figure . Ref. [4] addressed the impacts of renewable energy projects (REP) on
the community in Australia. The study focused on four major factors impacting
REP: social, political, economic, and environmental. According to one prediction,
the world’s energy demand will be increased up to 5 times from that of current
demand. Currently, three-fourths of that demand is fulfilled by the fossil fuels.
On the other hand, the more usage of these resources causes environment pollu-
tion and results in more greenhouse effect [5]. For the protection of environment,
social development and economics benefits can be get by using renewable energy
sources, because there is no requirement of fuel [6]. These resources avoid the
fluctuations in prices and importing of fossil fuel. Wind energy has some effects
like bird strike and noise etc., which can be mitigated by proper placement of
installation. The hydroelectric power may develop slowly with respect to other
resources, because a number of people have to leave their homes. But, this may be
beneficial for the companies to improve flood control [7]. The increasing global
warming effect can easily be prevented with the proper access of renewable
energy and by improving the renewable energy technologies [8]. In developing
countries like Pakistan, our main focus is to create jobs and the financial develop-
ment, than focusing on the environment impacts; with the shift of consumers’
attention toward renewable energy, society will be more effective and efficient
and enhancement in smart gird system [9].
Renewable energy source will be the best option for minimizing pollution,
increasing economy, energy security, and job opportunities; also, poverty will
be reduced because mostly poor people rely on the natural resources [10]. It is
believed that after 2050, 50% of global energy supply will be generated using
renewable energy resources; the magnitude of renewable energy sources is 140
times the worldwide annual energy consumption. Renewable energy resources
as “job motor for Germany,” 55% increase in total number of jobs since 2004,
reported in a publication from Environmental Ministry (BMU) [11]. Pakistan has
Figure 1.
Energy overview of Pakistan [22].

Wind Solar Hybrid Renewable Energy System

abundant renewable energy resources and also shows the potential to overcome the
energy demand gap, but it is inhibited by some factors like policy, institutional,
regulatory, fiscal, social, economic, technical, industrial, and informational barri-
ers [12]. Globally, around three billion people rely on solid fuel mostly fossil fuel,
causing health concerns and diseases like pneumonia, chronic respiratory diseases,
and lung cancer. It is found that with the 1% increment of growth there will be
an increment in CO2 emission up to 0.84% [13]. Population and GDP per capita
have positive impacts on increasing CO2 emission. Government of Pakistan should
initiate, in short run, small dams in the northern area and, in long run, big dams
and hydro power projects, and for domestic purposes, coal and hydel resources
can be used in small scale [14]. With the proper and efficient use of energy, the
culture will be developed [15]. Still most of the northern areas of Pakistan are not
electrified and we are under the huge crises of electric power; urban and rural
areas experienced 10–12 and 16–18h, respectively, of load shedding, which is
caused direct decrement in the overall economics. With solar cell, electricity can
be generated but in small amount, which would be useful as backup during load
shedding time. In Baluchistan, there is no scope of gird system because of scat-
tered villages; 77% of the population lives in villages and 90% of them do not have
electricity [16]. In Pakistan, big cities produce millions of tons of biomass, but lack
of technologies to generate electric power from these wastes is one of the biggest
barriers for the improvement in renewable energy resources in Pakistan. Pakistan
has potential to produce almost 652million kg of manure per day, only from cattle
and buffalo. It can produce 16.6millionm3 biogas daily, and 21million tons of
biofertilizer can be generated per year. That means 20% nitrogen and 66% phos-
phorous can be provided to the crop fields. Additionally, 3000MW energy can be
generated from sugarcane industries. A 10m3 biogas unit can save almost 92,062
PKR per year. Finally, the study concluded that biogas energy system has low initial
cost, low operating cost, and positive impact on household income. Biogas energy
can do good for almost 70% of the country’s population living in rural areas [17].
Nuclear energy can be useful for the development in the long term to meet global
increasing demand [18].
Every year, Pakistan spends 3 billion US dollars to import oil to meet the energy
requirement, and this ratio is increasing 1% yearly. Decreased efficiencies of
thermal plants, periodic changes in water flow, fuel availability, auxiliary consump-
tion and transmission limitations are main cause that Maximum system capability
is lower. The main cause of load shedding is the circular debt caused by government
institutions, poor revenue collection, insufficient tariff, corruption, losses, theft
of electric power, and dispute on tariff with FATA, AJK, and KESC and also due to
ignorance of merit, appointments of noneligible employees on political basis, etc.
Circular debt can only be improved with the introduction of more and more renew-
able energy to the national gird [19]. Nonrenewable consumption increases the real
GDP rapidly as compared to renewable energy consumption. However, it has 87%
variation in carbon dioxide emission, which causes deforestation and dangerous
impacts on the human health and the environment. Finally, it was concluded that
renewable energy consumption along with nonrenewable energy consumption is
the better solution for the GDP growth of the country [20]. It is found that econom-
ical, technical, reliability, availability of renewable energy resources, and financial
risk are the important factors for selection and ranking of renewable energy
technologies. The study prioritizes the renewable energy resources as wind energy,
biomass, solar photovoltaic, and solar thermal energy. Further, wind energy and
biomass were preferred for power generation in Pakistan [21], and energy review of
Pakistan is shown in Figure .


Social, Economic, and Environmental Impacts of Renewable Energy Resources
DOI: hp://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89494
. Impacts of renewable energy resources
. Social impacts
These resources also provide social benefits like improvement of health, accord-
ing to choice of consumer, advancement in technologies, and opportunities for the
work, but some basic considerations should be taken for the benefit of humans, for
example, climate conditions, level of education and standard of living, and region
whether urban or rural from agricultural point of view. Social aspects are the basic
considerations for the development of any country. The following social benefits
can be achieved by renewable energy systems: local employment, better health, job
opportunities, and consumer choice. The study concluded that the total emission
reduction is exponentially increasing in different years after the installation of
renewable energy projects in remote areas [23]. Social impacts of each resource with
its magnitude are listed in Table .
. Economics
It was discovered that renewable energy projects provide benefits in economic
point of view because they utilize local labor from rural areas, local material and
business, local shareholders, and services of local banks. In addition, the renew-
able energy projects have facilitated the communities by establishing a trust
fund that aims to invest the money earned by selling electricity inlocal economy.
This makes it easy for a few communities to invest money on any small business
of their own choice [4]. Biofuel projects created large number of jobs; however,
very low jobs were created by solar power plants, as the ratio of people working
in different companies increase that will create more jobs for others by using the
part of their economy for entertainment, leisure, restaurant, etc. The consumers
will be provided with electric power at a low cost as compared to that of conven-
tional energy sources, and overall economy will be enhanced because there will
be multiple options to generate power using different renewable energy sources
present in that region [23].
Technology Impact Magnitude
Photovoltaic Toxins Minor-Major
Visual Minor
Wind Bird strike Minor
Noise Minor
Visual Minor
Hydro Displacement Minor-Major
Agricultural Minor-Major
River damage Minor-Major
Geothermal Seismic activity Minor
Odor Minor
Pollution Minor-Major
Noise Minor
Table 3.
Social impacts assessment for different renewable energy sources [7].

Wind Solar Hybrid Renewable Energy System

. Environmental impacts
Renewable energy projects have also contributed in improving environmental
impacts such as reduction of carbon dioxide gas, awakening community about the
climate change. The study observed very small impacts on the people living in a
particular area, tourism, cost of energy supply, and educational impacts. Significant
impacts were observed in improvement of life standard, social bonds creation, and
community development. They also observed that the renewable energy projects
are complex to install and are local environmental and condition sensitive. Their
forecasting, execution, and planning require more consideration and knowledge as
compared to other projects [4]. The two main aspects of environment are air and
water pollution, normally created by the discharged water from houses, industries,
and polluted rain, and discharge of used oils and liquids contains poisonous chemi-
cals and heavy metals like mercury, lead, etc. Along with water pollution, natural
resources can be maintained and greenhouse effect and air pollution can be miti-
gated by the proper usage of renewable energy sources [23] as shown in Table .
Carbon dioxide emission with the generation of electric power using different
energy resources is given in Figure .
Various greenhouse gases in atmosphere is being increased by humankind by
doing many economic activities. The role of greenhouse gases and current situation
are given in Table .
. Sociopolitical impacts
Solar panels are usually installed at the roofs of the buildings that increase the job
opportunities in the PV system fabrication and installation. This increases the regional
development and reduces the usage of energy from nonrenewable energy projects. It
is very useful at the regions where there is no access of electricity. The major problem
Category of impact Relationship to
conventional sources
Comment
Exposure to harmful
chemicals
Emission of Hg, Cd, and other
toxic elements
Reduced emissions Emission reduced a few hundred
times.
Emission of particles Reduced emissions Much less emission.
Exposure to harmful gases
CO2 emission Reduced emissions A big advantage.
Acid rain, SO, NOxReduced emissions Reduced more than 25 times.
Other greenhouse gases Reduced greenhouse gases Big advantage-global warming.
Other
Spouts off fossil fuels Total or partial elimination
of oil spills
Heavy fuel oil and other petroleum
product spills.
Water quality Better quality water Reduced water pollution.
Soil erosion Smaller loss of land In most cases, there is no penetration
deep into earth.
Table 4.
Summary of environmental effects [24].


Social, Economic, and Environmental Impacts of Renewable Energy Resources
DOI: hp://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89494
with solar system is the high investment and maintenance cost. Biomass energy
projects have great contribution in the local job creation and the development of
rural areas. Such types of power plants have large opportunities of jobs in construc-
tion of plants, management, maintenance of plants, production, and preparation of
biomass. Only the noise production and unpleasant smell are the negative impacts of
these plants. Fuel cells have slow implementation because of their high cost of plant
construction and energy generation. Their construction and operation create jobs in
almost all technical activities. In hydro power plants, the major sociopolitical problem
is the shifting of the people from the areas where the plant is going to be constructed.
These plants provide significant jobs for local community and also play an important
role in the economic development of the community. The construction of tidal energy
plants has no effect on humans, and they have better contribution in the local and
official employment. These plants are very expensive and are not common. Wind
energy projects do not have any emigration problem, and they create large number
of job opportunities especially for engineers. Geo thermal energy projects provide
the following sociopolitical benefits: improvement in the education of local people,
improvement in living standards, and improvement in the care of health issues [25].
. Impacts on grid
When the solar panels are connected to the distribution system, the cost of
safety equipment is reduced because their short circuit current is higher than
the nominal value. Biomass power plants have the same effects on the gird as do
conventional plants. The integration of wind energy plants, tidal energy, and
geothermal energy is complex [25].
Figure 2.
Carbon dioxide equivalent emission during power generation [7].
Substance Ability
to retain
infrared
radiation
compared
to CO
Preindustrial
concentration
Present
concentration
Annual
growth
rate
()
Share in
greenhouse
effect due
to human
activity
Share in
greenhouse
effect increase
due to human
activity
Alpha 1275 346 0.4 71 50±5
Beta 25 0.75 1.65 1.0 815±5
Gamma 250 0.25 0.35 0.2 18 9±5
Delta 1 7, 5 0 0 00.00023 5.0 113±5
Epsilon 20,000 00.00040 5.0 213±5
Table 5.
Role of different substances in greenhouse effect [15].

Wind Solar Hybrid Renewable Energy System

. Socioeconomic impacts
Three case studies were made to investigate the socioeconomic benefits of
renewable energy projects, and the three cases were solar, wind, and biofuel energy
projects; empirical method was used to collect data. The basic aim of study was to
know the contribution of renewable energy projects to local sustainability, which
includes social, economic, and environmental, and to identify the socioeconomic
benefits of REPs through the concerned community. It was done by doing survey
of the communities. Eleven parameters were used including job creation, impacts
on education, easy usage of energy, income development, demographic impacts,
social bonds creation and community development, usage of native resources, and
tourism. They concluded that the impacts of REPs on employment are positive, and
indirect employment is high in comparison with the size of community, whereas
direct employment is moderate [26].
. Availability and technical limitations
One of the important assessing factors to generate power from renewable
energy sources is the availability and their technical limitation. Each resource has
some limitations; photovoltaic has limitation to generate power only because heat
energy from sun can only be received during the day time, except cloudy season.
For wind turbine, speed should not increase beyond 25m/s; otherwise, turbine
will be damaged. Also, low speed of wind, that is, <3m/s, will not be sufficient for
the generation of electric power. Geothermal has good ability to generate power
throughout the day for 24h but is geography limited according to the presence of
resources. Hydro-electric power plants are easy to start, stop, and operate within
minutes; hence, they are considered as one of the highest available, reliable, and
flexible renewable energy resources. From efficiency point of view, hydroelectric is
classified at the top of the list, and then wind energy, photovoltaic, and geothermal
are lowest efficient renewable energy resources. Because of availability of cells
in different categories, the efficiency of photovoltaic is very much variable [7].
According to the efficiency, different energy sources are categorized in Table .
. Conclusion
The conventional energy resources like oil, gas, and coal are very important
for the improvement in economics of a country. A country like Pakistan is fully
dependent on the conventional energy sources in spite of knowing its bad effects for
health and environment like greenhouse effect, global warming effect, etc. Pakistan
Technique Efficiency
Photovoltaic 4–22%
Wind 24–54%
Hydro >90%
Geothermal 10–20%
Coal 32–45%
Gas 45–53%
Table 6.
Efficiency of electricity generation [7].


Social, Economic, and Environmental Impacts of Renewable Energy Resources
DOI: hp://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89494
is blessed with all the renewable energy sources like hydro, wind, and geothermal,
and for solar power generation also, it is a suitable country. But, the main problems
to generate power from renewable energy resources are funds and politics. All the
factors like emission of greenhouse gases, availability of resources, land require-
ments, water consumption, social impacts, and price of power generated are taken
into consideration for the classification of renewable energy sources. Wind power
generation is considered as lowest water consumption, lowest relative greenhouse
gas emission, and most favorable social impacts. It is considered as one of the most
sustainable renewable energy sources, followed by hydropower, photovoltaic,
and then geothermal. Biomass is considered suitable for the small-scale industries
because of saving of fuel in considerable amount. Local employment, better health,
job opportunities, job creation, consumer choice, improvement of life standard,
social bonds creation, income development, demographic impacts, social bonds
creation, and community development can be achieved by the proper usage of
renewable energy system. Along with benefits of renewable energy resources, these
are complex to install and are local environmental and conditions sensitive. Their
forecasting, execution, and planning require more consideration and knowledge as
compared to other projects.
Acknowledgements
The author thanks the Mehran University of Engineering and Technology,
Jamshoro, for providing the necessary facilities for carrying out this research.
Author details
MaheshKumar
Department of Electrical Engineering, Mehran University of Engineering and
Technology, Jamshoro, Sindh, Pakistan
*Address all correspondence to: rathii.mahesh@faculty.muet.edu.pk
© 2020 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms
of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is properly cited.


Wind Solar Hybrid Renewable Energy System
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