Renewable energy is growing in popularity worldwide, but not without its challenges. It’s no secret that the renewable energy industry faces fierce competition from traditional fuels like coal and gas. The question is, though: how can these renewable endothermic energy terraria survive? And the answer is: find your competitive advantage. This is easier said than done, which is why you should use these four secrets to improve your renewable energy efficiency.
Secret #1: Focus on Renewables’ Unique Benefits
The first step to improving your renewable energy efficiency lies in understanding what its unique benefits are over traditional fuel sources and competitors. Consider, for instance, the cost of renewable energy. It’s free, right? Well, kind of. You see, unlike gas and coal prices that fluctuate daily, the cost of solar energy and wind energy won’t change so long as the sun keeps shining or wind continues to blow. Even if natural gas prices fall or coal prices rise – which they frequently do – you’ll still be getting your energy from an entirely different source that isn’t affected as much by these changes. That provides a competitive advantage over both traditional fuels and other renewable sources like hydropower and geothermal power.
Secret #2: Know When to Focus on Cost
Don’t fall into the trap of only emphasizing your competitive advantages. You see, every source of energy has a time and a place where it’s most effective. What’s great about natural gas is that it provides power 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Many solar plants do the same thing because they can power batteries to store energy during the day for use at night. However, that doesn’t stop either from being affected by changes in fuel prices. If you’re using hydroelectric power at night, for example, and natural gas prices spike in the morning – you’re going to have to pay for it if you want to keep using hydro-power…just like everyone else does. Now, if you’re a business owner, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. You can leverage these price changes to diversify your power budget and make more competitive offerings to customers. But if you’re an energy consumer by yourself, you might want to consider focusing on renewable energy’s unique benefits from time-to-time instead – especially because of its competitive advantage over traditional fuels and other renewables.
Secret #3: Focus on What You Can Control Instead of What You Can’t
To improve your renewable energy efficiency in the long-term, it’s important that you learn how to focus on what matters most for your business or personal objectives. To do so, it’s important that you look at the renewable energy industry from a macro scale – i.e., how your industry works collaboratively as a whole. Don’t focus solely on the minute details of individual installations and experts. What does matter is how all these elements are contributing to the bigger picture – in other words, what you can control instead of what you can’t. Here’s a common example: hydropower plants aren’t controllable by some people in a particular area. Sure, they’re not solar or wind farms, but they still make an impact on those who use them. Having a diverse energy portfolio like this can be more beneficial to you, your business and your customers than a more traditional one. Think of it as – instead of trying to control the value of one stock, you’d be controlling the value of an entire market full of stocks.
Secret #4: Look at Renewable Energy From an Outsider’s Perspective
While insider information is great, sometimes being an outsider can give you a clearer perspective on how others are viewing renewable energy. In turn, this can help you find new ways to approach it and improve its efficiency – which isn’t that hard when you consider that renewable energy is often seen as “green” or “eco-friendly”. You can leverage this if you’re trying to sell energy to customers or create a brand, but you can also leverage it in other ways like chasing after new business opportunities. If you’re in the oil, coal and natural gas industries, for example, looking at wind power as an outsider might help you discover a new market of customers and partners.
Secret #5: Don’t Forget About Renewable Energy’s Disadvantages
While being positive about renewable energy is great, don’t forget about its disadvantages either. The truth is that renewable energy isn’t all sunshine and roses – it just isn’t affected as much by certain situations like fuel prices and storage availability. What’s more, a renewable energy portfolio that only consists of cold places could be vulnerable to colder weather and snow, etc. That’s why it’s important to understand the disadvantages of renewable energy and plan accordingly.
Summary:
Renewable energy is growing in popularity worldwide for many reasons. Solar and wind farms aren’t limited by the same fuel or storage concerns that traditional plants face, making renewables more efficient in some cases. However, you can’t rely on renewable energy’s unique benefits all of the time – so you need to find other ways to improve its efficiency as well. Instead of focusing on what you can’t control– like fuel prices- focus on what you can control instead, like your unique energy portfolio.
