Renewables - Energy System - IEA (2024)

Countries and regions making notable progress in advancing renewables include:

• China continues to lead in terms of renewable electricity capacity additions, with 160 GW added in 2022, almost half of all global deployment. The 14th Five-Year Plan for Renewable Energy, released in 2022, provides ambitious targets for renewable energy use, which should spur investment in the coming years.
• The European Union is accelerating solar PV and wind deployment in response to the energy crisis, with more than 50 GW added in 2022, an almost 45% increase compared to 2021. New policies and targets proposed in the REPowerEU Plan and The Green Deal Industrial Plan are expected to be important drivers of renewable energy investments in the coming years.
• The United States announced important new funding in 2022 under the IRA, which is expected to advance deployment of renewables in the medium term, and to boost investment in both power plants and equipment manufacturing.
• India remains committed to its ambitious target of reaching 500 GW of non-fossil power capacity in 2030. In April 2023, it announced a plan to auction 50 GW of new capacity annually to fulfil this goal.
  

Renewables, in particular wind and solar technologies, are responsible for one of the largest shares of global CO2 emission reductions between now and 2030 in the NZE Scenario. They offer an alternative to investment in new fossil fuel power generation plants and displace generation from existing units.

In the NZE Scenario, renewable power in the form of direct electricity use or indirect use, e.g. in the form of renewable hydrogen, is expected to displace the majority of fossil fuels use in end-use sectors, especially industry and transport. Renewable heat sources like modern bioenergy, geothermal plants and solar heaters will also play a major role in decarbonisation of the heating sector.

In 2022, renewable energy supply from solar, wind, hydro, geothermal and ocean rose by close to 8%, meaning that the share of these technologies in total global energy supply increased by close to 0.4 percentage points, reaching 5.5%. Modern bioenergy's share in 2022 increased by 0.2 percentage points, reaching 6.8%. Record renewable electricity capacity additions in 2022, and an increase in hydropower availability, allowed non-bioenergy renewables to achieve their second highest share growth in history. This result is second only to growth in 2020, an unusual year, when the Covid-19 pandemic led to a global economic crisis and resulting decrease in total energy consumption, while use of renewables remained robust.

The supply of renewables needs to accelerate to reach around 13% expansion annually over 2023-2030 to align with the NZE Scenario. Despite record renewable electricity capacity additions in 2022, supply growth was still significantly below that level. Much faster deployment of all renewable technologies in all regions of the world will be needed to put the world on track with the NZE Scenario.

Electricity generation from renewables accounts for about 40% of the total renewable energy supply. For non-bioenergy renewable sources, this share is as high as 80% with the remainder in the form of heat produced in solar thermal and geothermal installations. Wind and solar PV evenly accounted for about 85% of 2022’s record growth in renewable electricity generation of over 600 TWh. The rest of the growth came from hydropower generation, which increased by about 2%. Electricity and heat generation growth in geothermal, concentrated solar power (CSP) and ocean technologies mostly stalled in 2022 due to limited capacity additions. In total, in 2022 non-bioenergy renewable sources accounted for almost 30% of electricity generation.

Solar PV has been the fastest growing technology by capacity additions in recent years and is aligned with the NZE Scenario. In the case of wind, hydropower and bioenergy, more efforts are needed to get on track, as growth in recent years and that expected in the near future is significantly below required levels. Other less widely used renewable technologies, such as CSP, geothermal and ocean power, are not on track and require a rapid step-up in support.

Renewable electricity is subject to policy support and national targets in the majority of countries around the world. Various types of support have been implemented, including technology-specific measures. The following important changes have been implemented in the past couple of years:

• China published its 14th Five-Year Plan for Renewable Energy in June 2022, which includes an ambitious target of 33% of electricity generation to come from renewables by 2025 (up from about 29% in 2021) and, for the first time, a target for renewable heat use.
• In August 2022 the federal government of the United States introduced the IRA, which significantly expands support for renewable energy in the next ten years through tax credits and other measures.
• In May 2022 the European Commission proposed to increase the European Union’s renewable energy target for 2030 to 45% as part of the REPowerEU Plan (which would require 1 236 GW of total installed renewable capacity). Many European countries have already expanded their renewables support mechanisms in order to accelerate renewable power and heat use with a view to the 2030 targets and in response to the energy crisis resulting from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In addition, in February 2023 the Commission announced The Green Deal Industrial Plan, aiming to support the expansion of clean energy technology manufacturing.
• During COP26, held in November 2021 in Glasgow, India announced new targets for 2030, comprising 500 GW of total non-fossil electricity generating capacity and a 50% renewable electricity generation share (more than double the 22% share in 2020), as well as net zero emissions by 2070.