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Summary
- Renewables account for 90% share in new power capacity expansion globally in 2020.
- China accounted for half of global renewable energy capacity growth
- Renewables hold the key to reversing climate change damages
Countries around the world have taken cognizance of the significance of renewable sources for electricity generation in our fight against climate change. International Energy Agency’s latest report reflects how the world embraced renewable energy sources like solar and wind power in 2020.
Last year, the consumption of fossil fuel dropped due to the pandemic-triggered economic downturn. However, according to the International Energy Agency’s data, one energy source not only remained unscathed, but also managed to register a rise in demand! This source was renewables.
Renewables hold the key to reversing climate change damages and achieving ambitious goals pledged by world leaders in recently concluded Climate Summit.
The agency’s report says that annual renewable capacity additions rose by 45 per cent in 2020. This whopping surge means that 280 gigawatts of new renewable energy capacity was added last year. Disruptions in supply chain due to Covid-19 pandemic-triggered restrictions did not deter the renewable energy space to register the largest year-on-year increase in net capacity addition since 1999.
Renewables, in 2020, had a 90 per cent share in new power capacity expansion globally. This figure corroborates with the dominance of renewable energy over fossil fuels in the twenty first century. Wind energy capacity additions in 2020 registered a 90 per cent growth. Solar power grew by fifty per cent since the onset of the pandemic.
Image: Pixabay
China accounted for half of global renewable energy capacity growth last year and will continue to outshine other countries by a big margin in 2021 and 2022. The report, however, claims that growth of renewables in China may slow down as developers having already completed projects before impending subsidy phase-out. India, a significant emitter of greenhouse gases registered a decline in net capacity addition in 2020.
The International Energy Agency is highly optimistic about renewable energy’s growth in the United States, and one of the key driving forces will be extension of federal tax credit. Expansion of renewables across Europe and the US will compensate for the slowdown in China, and this will help maintain the momentum of high growth in 2021. However, the IEA forecasts for 2021 and 2022 do not take into account the recent pledge by the US President who wants to cut the country’s emissions by half over the next ten years.
The lead author of the report, Heymi Bahar, has called this growth in renewable energy sector as ‘unprecedented’ and asserted that this ‘exceptional growth’ is ‘the new normal for renewables sector’.
