被新的一期The Economist的社论的标题吸引，遂翻了这篇文章，谨供参考，欢迎交流观点，同时指正不足之处。
ALMOST 150 years after photovoltaic cells and wind turbines were invented, they still generate only 7% of the world’s electricity.
在太阳能光伏发电和风力涡轮发电技术问世将近150年后，它们依然只产生全球7%的电力。
Yet something remarkable is happening. From being peripheral to the energy system just over a decade ago, they are now growing faster than any other energy source and their falling costs are making them competitive with fossil fuels.
可有些令人瞩目的事情却在发生。十年前还是能源系统里微不足道的一部分，而现在它们比其他任何能源都发展的要快，不停降低的成本使得它们能够同化石燃料旗鼓相当。
BP, an oil firm, expects renewables to account for half of the growth in global energy supply over the next 20 years. It is no longer far-fetched to think that the world is entering an era of clean, unlimited and cheap power. About time, too.
BP，一家石油公司，作出预期认为可再生能源将在接下来的20年内占到全球供能数量增长的一半。认为世界即将进入一个干净，无限且廉价能源的时代不再是不着边际的想法。同时，也该是时候了。
There is a $20trn hitch, though. To get from here to there requires huge amounts of investment over the next few decades, to replace old smog-belching power plants and to upgrade the pylons and wires that bring electricity to consumers.
然而，这还存在着一道200亿美刀的鸿沟。从现在的境地到理想的状态需要接下来的几十年中投入巨额的资金，来取代那些喷云吐雾的发电厂，同时将给消费者输送电力的电缆塔和电线进行更新换代。
Normally investors like putting their money into electricity because it offers reliable returns. Yet green energy has a dirty secret. The more it is deployed, the more it lowers the price of power from any source.
通常情况下投资者喜欢将他们的资金投入到电力产业中因为这会提供可靠的收益。然而，绿色能源却有一个肮脏的秘密——它投入使用的越广泛，来自其他资源产生的能源的价格就将降得越低。
That makes it hard to manage the transition to a carbon-free future, during which many generating technologies, clean and dirty, need to remain profitable if the lights are to stay on. Unless the market is fixed, subsidies to the industry will only grow.
这使得向没有碳排放的未来的转型变得困难了，因为在这个过程中，许多供能的厂家，无论清洁与否，都需要保持盈利，如果灯还需要亮着的话。除非市场的问题解决了，给能源产业的补贴将只会继续增长。
Policymakers are already seeing this inconvenient truth as a reason to put the brakes on renewable energy. In parts of Europe and China, investment in renewables is slowing as subsidies are cut back. However, the solution is not less wind and solar. It is to rethink how the world prices clean energy in order to make better use of it.
政策的制定者已经看到了这个尴尬的事实，同样也将其作为缘由放缓了可再生能源的进一步投放。在欧洲和中国的部分地区，对可再生能源的投资正在放缓，而这正是因为补贴被降低了。然而，解决方法不是减少风或者太阳能，还是去重新思考世界应当如何去给清洁能源定价，进而更好的发挥它的作用。
Shock to the system
At its heart, the problem is that government-supported renewable energy has been imposed on a market designed in a different era.
问题的中心在于政府所支持的可再生能源，被投放在了一个与之时代上不相同步的市场里。
For much of the 20th century, electricity was made and moved by vertically integrated, state-controlled monopolies.
20世纪的大多数时间，电力产业都被垂直一体化的国有垄断企业所生产，运输。
From the 1980s onwards, many of these were broken up, privatised and liberalised, so that market forces could determine where best to invest.
从1980s开始，许多这些垄断企业都被分解，私有化或解体了，进而市场力量可以决定哪儿是最好的投资方向。
Today only about 6% of electricity users get their power from monopolies. Yet everywhere the pressure to decarbonise power supply has brought the state creeping back into markets.
今天只有6%的用户从垄断企业获取电力，然而无处不在的对无碳排放能源的需求使得国家不得不走回原先市场化的道路。
**This is disruptive for three reasons. **
而这件事情将是极具破坏性的，有三个原因。
The first is the subsidy system itself. The other two are inherent to the nature of wind and solar: their intermittency and their very low running costs.
首先是补贴体系自身，另外二者则关于风力和太阳能的本质：它们的间歇性以及极低的运作成本。
All three help explain why power prices are low and public subsidies are addictive.
如上三点解释了为什么能源价格非常低然而公众补贴却仍然是不可或缺的。
First, the splurge of public subsidy, of about $800bn since 2008, has distorted the market. It came about for noble reasons—to counter climate change and prime the pump for new, costly technologies, including wind turbines and solar panels.
第一，公众补贴的随意挥霍，自08年起的约8亿美刀，已经扰乱了市场。它投放时打着高尚的旗号——为了抵制气候变化并且要采取措施促使新兴且昂贵的科技，包括风力涡轮和太阳能光伏技术的发展。
But subsidies hit just as electricity consumption in the rich world was stagnating because of growing energy efficiency and the financial crisis. The result was a glut of power-generating capacity that has slashed the revenues utilities earn from wholesale power markets and hence deterred investment.
但是补贴入市的时机恰好是发达世界中电力消费因逐渐提高的能源效率以及经济危机而遭遇滞涨的时刻。
Second, green power is intermittent. The vagaries of wind and sun—especially in countries without favourable weather—mean that turbines and solar panels generate electricity only part of the time. To keep power flowing, the system relies on conventional power plants, such as coal, gas or nuclear, to kick in when renewables falter. But because they are idle for long periods, they find it harder to attract private investors. So, to keep the lights on, they require public funds.
第二，绿色能源是间歇性的。风和太阳的不可预测性——尤其是在没有有力天气情况的国家——意味着涡轮和光伏电板仅仅只能部分时间产生电力。为了保证能源的供应，这个系统还需要依赖传统的发电方式，比如煤，天然气或者是核能，在可再生能源无法工作的时候接手。但是正因为可再生能源的长期搁置，它们很难能够吸引到私人投资者。所以，为了能够持续供电，它们需要公共的资金支持。
Everyone is affected by a third factor: renewable energy has negligible or zero marginal running costs—because the wind and the sun are free. In a market that prefers energy produced at the lowest short-term cost, wind and solar take business from providers that are more expensive to run, such as coal plants, depressing power prices, and hence revenues for all.
每个人都被第三个因素所影响：可再生能源有着微乎其微甚至可以不计的边际运作成本——因为风能和太阳能是免费的。在一个倾向于短期能源生产成本最低的市场中，风能和太阳能从供应商手中接手过来运营成本更高的供电方式比如火力发电厂，进而压低供能价格，造福整个市场。
注释：我个人对该段的理解是，从短期上来说，新能源收益是非常低的，进而没有投资者愿意投资建厂来提供新能源，这是供不足；而现在越来越多的人有保护环境的意识，进而有对绿色清洁能源的需求，导致需求大，供需之间有缺口，政府却通过给传统能源提供补助的方式来促使人们使用传统能源而非清洁能源，进而有了“清洁能源从供应商手中接过运营成本更高。。。进而造福整个市场”（因为它间接性的拉低了其他能源的供应价格）
Get smart
The higher the penetration of renewables, the worse these problems get—especially in saturated markets. In Europe, which was first to feel the effects, utilities have suffered a “lost decade” of falling returns, stranded assets and corporate disruption.
可再生能源渗透的越深，这些问题就会变得越严重——尤其是在饱和的市场中。欧洲已经首先感受到了这些影响，公用事业已经遭受了一个“失落的十年”——收益下降，资产滞胀以及企业破产。
Last year, Germany’s two biggest electricity providers, E.ON and RWE, both split in two. In renewable-rich parts of America power providers struggle to find investors for new plants. Places with an abundance of wind, such as China, are curtailing wind farms to keep coal plants in business.
去年，德国两家最大的电力公司，E.ON和RWE，都分裂成了两家。在可再生能源盛行的地区，美国的能源供应商努力寻找投资商开设新的电厂。有充足风力的地区，比如中国，都已经雪藏了风力发电厂，以保持火力发电厂的运营。
The corollary is that the electricity system is being re-regulated as investment goes chiefly to areas that benefit from public support.
必然的结果就是电力系统正在被重新设立规则，伴随着投资大部分流向能够从公共补贴中收益的区域。
Paradoxically, that means the more states support renewables, the more they pay for conventional power plants, too, using “capacity payments” to alleviate intermittency. In effect, politicians rather than markets are once again deciding how to avoid blackouts.
矛盾的是，这也意味着支持可再生能源的国家越多，他们支付给传统发电厂的也越多，因为他们用“支付能力”来缓解可再生能源的间歇性问题。实际上，是政客而非市场在又一次在选择如何规避停电的发生。
They often make mistakes: Germany’s support for cheap, dirty lignite caused emissions to rise, notwithstanding huge subsidies for renewables.
他们却又总是犯错误：德国支持廉价的能源，引擎点火导致的污染排放却增加了，尽管为可再生能源发放了巨额的补贴。
Without a new approach the renewables revolution will stall.
The good news is that new technology can help fix the problem.
没有新办法的话，可再生能源的改革将要停滞了。而好消息是新的科技将帮助解决这个问题。
Digitalisation, smart meters and batteries are enabling companies and households to smooth out their demand—by doing some energy-intensive work at night, for example.
数字化，智能电表以及电池都在帮助企业和家庭缓和他们的需求——通过例如将能源密集型的工作放在夜晚。
This helps to cope with intermittent supply. Small, modular power plants, which are easy to flex up or down, are becoming more popular, as are high-voltage grids that can move excess power around the network more efficiently.
这有效解决了间歇性供应的问题。同时易于上下弯曲的小型模块化发电厂正在变得十分流行，能够使得更多额外能源更有效的在电路网络中运行的高压系统网络亦然。
The bigger task is to redesign power markets to reflect the new need for flexible supply and demand. They should adjust prices more frequently, to reflect the fluctuations of the weather.
更大的任务是重新设计能源供给市场，以反应对灵活的供需关系的需要。他们应当更为频繁的调整价格，以反应天气的变化。
At times of extreme scarcity, a high fixed price could kick in to prevent blackouts. Markets should reward those willing to use less electricity to balance the grid, just as they reward those who generate more of it.
在极度稀缺的年代，一个高昂的固定价格能够很好的起到防止市场崩溃的作用。市场应当奖励那些愿意用更少的电的人，来调控市场，正如它们奖励那些生产的更多的人。
Bills could be structured to be higher or lower depending how strongly a customer wanted guaranteed power all the time—a bit like an insurance policy. In short, policymakers should be clear they have a problem and that the cause is not renewable energy, but the out-of-date system of electricity pricing. Then they should fix it.
账单价格的高低可以根据客户有多想要无时无刻供应的稳定的能源来制定，有一点像保险的售卖政策。总而言之，政策的制定者应当明确他们目前面临着一个问题并且这问题的原因不是可再生能源，而是早已过时的电力价格机制。他们应该修复这问题。
写在文末的一些感想：这篇文章提出的一些问题确实值得我们思考，比如中国将风力发电弃之不用，目的是为了火力发电厂的持续运作。这的确是我们国家，甚至是全球都需要面对的问题，在转型期间，原有的能源结构如何平稳的过渡，how to get to there from here，在考虑可持续发展的长远目标的同时，又要如何控制住当下的成本，维持经济发展，的确是很棘手的问题。我们不可能违背客观规律，那么可能正如文中所提出的，要么从价格机制上予以调控，要么，就寄希望于科技，改变我们的未来吧。
“本译文仅供个人研习、欣赏语言之用，谢绝任何转载及用于任何商业用途。本译文所涉法律后果均由本人承担。本人同意简书平台在接获有关著作权人的通知后，删除文章。”
