Renewable Energy Futures: Challenges for Law and Business

Presented by Dr. Eric Martinot

Senior research director, Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies, Tokyo, adjunct teaching associate, Victoria University of Wellington, and lead author, REN21 Renewable Energy Policy Network

Driven by a growing number of policies in over 120 countries around the world over the past 20 years, renewable energy has become mainstreamed. Over $250 billion was invested in renewable energy last year, about the same as global investment in conventional power generation. Wind power in China already produces as much electricity as nuclear. Scenarios and country policy targets show much higher shares of renewables worldwide in the future.

But a turning point is being reached, and a new generation of regulatory frameworks and business models will need to evolve, directed at the integration of renewable energy into buildings, transport, industry, and power grids. This includes, for example, power market rules for distributed and peer-to-peer solar, contracts for power-demand flexibility, building materials standards and codes, and electric vehicle charging policies. Opportunities and challenges for law and practice in New Zealand will be explored.

Dr. Eric Martinot is an internationally recognized writer, scholar, and speaker on the subject of renewable energy. He has authored 70 publications on sustainable energy over the past 25 years, and is best known for creating and writing as lead author from 2005-2010 the standard global reference, the REN21 Renewables Global Status Report.

Most recently he researched and wrote the REN21 Renewables Global Futures Report, including interviews with 170 leading experts worldwide. He lived in Beijing for three years as senior visiting scholar with Tsinghua University, where he also taught graduate courses on sustainable energy.

He was formerly a senior energy specialist with the World Bank, and holds a Ph.D. in Energy and Resources from the University of California Berkeley and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His renewable energy information web site is www.martinot.info.