The Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), Dr. Faith Birol has said that, renewables are set to become the largest source of electricity generation worldwide, ending coal’s five decades as the top power provider by 2025.
Commenting on the report by the agency, he explained that, by that 2025, renewables are expected to supply one-third of the world’s electricity and their total capacity will be twice the size of the entire power capacity of China today.
He further intimated that, renewable power is defying the difficulties caused by the pandemic, showing robust growth while other fuels struggle.
“The resilience and positive prospects of the sector are clearly reflected by continued strong appetite from investors and the future looks even brighter with new capacity additions on course to set fresh records this year and next.”
The IEA, in their report’s outlook for the next five years notes that, it sees cost reductions and sustained policy support continuing to drive strong growth in renewable power technologies.
“Total wind and solar PV capacity is on course to surpass natural gas in 2023 and coal in 2024. Driven by rapid cost declines, annual offshore wind additions are set to surge, accounting for one-fifth of the total wind market in 2025. The growing capacity will take the amount of renewable electricity produced globally to new heights.”
In the report, the IEA posited that, renewables will account for almost 90% of the increase in total power capacity worldwide in 2020 and accelerate in 2021 to their fastest growth.
According to the report, renewable power is growing robustly around the world this year, contrasting with the sharp declines triggered by the Covid-19 crisis in many other parts of the energy sector such as oil, gas and coal.
The report also estimated that, electricity generated by renewable technologies will increase by 7% globally in 2020, underpinned by the record new capacity additions adding that, this growth comes, despite a 5% annual drop in global energy demand, the largest since the Second World War.
The IEA however said that, renewables outside the electricity sector are suffering from the impacts of the Covid-19 crisis and Biofuels used in transport are set to experience their first annual decline in two decades, driven by the wider plunge in transport fuel demand this year as well as lower fossil fuel prices reducing the economic attractiveness of biofuels.
It added that, demand for bioenergy in industry is also falling as a result of the wider drop in economic activity. The net result of these declines and the growth of renewable power is an expected overall increase of 1% in global renewable energy demand in 2020.
Touching on policy support for renewables, the report noted that, renewable fuels for transport and industry are an area in particular need of potential policy support, as the sector has been severely hit by the demand shock caused by the crisis.
It said, more can and should be done, to support deployment and innovation in bioenergy to supply sustainable fuels for those sectors.
