**This article was taken from The WIRED World in 2016 --_our fourth annual trends report, a standalone magazine in which our network of expert writers and influencers predicts what's coming next. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online._
By 2020, a European country's electricity supply will run, for one week, on nothing but renewable energy. In 2016, several significant milestones will take place to make this happen.
Consider energy production, one of our biggest challenges. A growing population, more electronics and climate change driving a need to leave fossil fuels behind means that we'll have to generate more and more electricity, using more and more renewable methods. There are two primary ways to do this in Europe: wind power and solar power.
Until this decade, though, both of these methods have been less successful than we'd hoped. Solar panels, although improving, aren't very efficient -- which is bad in a cloudy continent such as Europe -- and wind turbines tend to split popular opinion right down the middle. Some consider them awesomely beautiful, whereas others see them as a blight, a danger to wildlife and a con. General public opinion would prefer to have a polluting coal-fired power station somewhere over the horizon than windmills in plain view. And no one wants to use less power.
You might think that this is social problem, one of attitude change rather than technology. But Denmark found a solution by putting its wind farms offshore for stronger winds and fewer objections. The Danes now dominate the industry. No surprise, then, that during 2014, just under 40 percent of all Denmark's electricity was generated from wind power. There were even some days when the country's entire electricity demand was sated by offshore turbines. From 24 hours at a time now, to a week at a time in a few years, seems entirely possible.
But those peak events do point out a disadvantage with wind power: its variability. Just as solar doesn't work at night, the wind doesn't always blow. We'll need to have a mix of generating technologies to get us through the dark and still times. Which leads us to the second big idea: by 2050, Denmark plans on having all of its energy needs -- vehicles and factories included -- delivered by renewable sources.
So how to do this? The answer is probably already in your pocket: batteries. In 2014, the race began to bring new, giant, household-sized battery technology to the market. At the end of April 2015, Tesla introduced the Powerwall: a massive battery you can mount on the wall of your home, hook up to solar panels to charge during the day and use to power your home the whole time. This load shifting concept, and the idea of using it to disconnect entirely from the grid, has caught on: a month after launch, Tesla had reportedly more than $800 million (£500m) of pre-orders.
Meanwhile, by the end of 2016, Facebook's new data centre will open in Fort Worth, Texas. That's a very warm city to be building such a facility -- data centres need to be kept cold -- but Facebook says that it's, ahem, cool with the plan. The whole building, servers and routers and everything, will be powered solely from the accompanying 200MW wind farm it is building next door. What's more, it is giving the plans away, so other builders of large energy-intensive data centres can do the same thing. The usual thinking about energy production is being, yes, blown away.
Ben Hammersley is a WIRED contributing editor and the author ofNow for Then: How to Face the Digital Future Without Fear*(Hodder)*
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
