Quantum computing in renewable energy exploration: status, opportunities, and challenges

Abstract There is a potential disruptive tendency in renewable energy that could be birthed by the enormous computing power of quantum computers. It is expected that the approach to renewable energy exploration would be significantly transformed, given the computational efficiency and optimization capacity of quantum computing associated with highly efficient algorithms that can provide exponential speedup for renewable energy process modeling. Quantum computing integrates several functional elements which produced distinguish characteristics from the classic computing system. This chapter discusses the application of quantum computing to renewable energy exploration and associated optimization problems. The current status and challenges associated with quantum computing are discussed while the opportunities are outlined. Also, the basic underlying concepts of quantum computation are discussed while their peculiar attributes compared to classical computing are highlighted. Some existing quantum optimization algorithms were briefly discussed. Given the enormous amount of data that are currently generated across renewable energy exploration, the energy company will be able to harness new opportunities which have hitherto not been possible and by so doing the world will further progress toward achieving climate change mitigation obligation.