Increased demand and procurement requires more of these technologies to be manufactured and developed, causing reduced costs due to learning and economies of scale, which increases the incentive for additional procurement. Between 20, the cost of utility-scale solar photovoltaics fell 82 percent, and the cost of onshore wind fell 39 percent. Wind and solar renewable energy technologies have seen substantial cost declines over the past decade. Nearly all countries had renewable energy policy targets in place at the end of 2020.īusinesses with sustainability goals are also driving renewable energy development by building their own facilities (e.g., solar roofs and wind farms), procuring renewable electricity through power purchase agreements, and purchasing renewable energy certificates (RECs). Renewable Energy Driversįactors affecting renewable energy deployment include market conditions (e.g., cost, diversity, proximity to demand or transmission, and resource availability), policy decisions, (e.g., tax credits, feed-in tariffs, and renewable portfolio standards) as well as specific regulations. Uncertainty about federal tax credits (e.g., Renewable Fuel Standard), California’s Low Carbon fuel standard, fuel prices, and economic growth will influence the pace of U.S. In the industrial sector, biomass makes up 98 percent of the renewable energy use with roughly 60 percent derived from biomass wood, 31 percent from biofuels, and nearly 7 percent from biomass waste. However, slower growth (i.e., 0.6 – 0.7 percent annual growth) is expected out to mid-century. In the transportation sector, renewable fuels, such as ethanol and biodiesel, have increased significantly during the past decade. Non-hydro renewables have increased their share of electric power generation from less than 1 percent in 2005 to over 12.5 percent at the end of 2020 while demand for electricity has remained relatively stable. Most of the increase is expected to come from wind and solar. That’s expected to rise to 35 percent by 2030. Renewables made up 19.8 percent of electricity generation in 2020, with hydro and wind making up the majority.consumption of renewables is expected to grow over the next 30 years at an average annual rate of 2.4 percent, higher than the overall growth rate in energy consumption (0.5 percent per year) under a business-as-usual scenario. Almost 5 percent of the energy consumed across sectors in the United States was from renewable sources in 2020 (11.6 quadrillion Btu out of a total of 92.9 quadrillion Btu).The International Energy Agency notes that the development and deployment of renewable electricity technologies are projected to continue to be deployed at record levels, but government policies and financial support are needed to incentivize even greater deployments of clean electricity (and supporting infrastructure) to give the world a chance to achieve its net zero climate goals. Led by wind power and solar PV, more than 256 GW of capacity was added in 2020, an increase of nearly 10 percent in total installed renewable power capacity. Renewables made up 29 percent of global electricity generation by the end of 2020.
About 11.2 percent of the energy consumed globally for heating, power, and transportation came from modern renewables in 2019 (i.e., biomass, geothermal, solar, hydro, wind, and biofuels), up from 8.7 percent a decade prior (see figure below).It remained stable in Canada.Įlectricity consumption recovered in Latin America (+6.1%, with an 8.6% growth in Brazil and dynamic trends in Mexico, Argentina, Chile and Colombia), in Africa (around +5%, including +2.3% in South Africa) and in the Middle East (around +5.5%, including about +4% in Saudi Arabia).Renewable energy is the fastest-growing energy source globally and in the United States. Electricity consumption increased in most Asia-Pacific countries, rising by around 5% in India, Indonesia and South Korea, but stagnated in Australia and declined in Japan, in a context of strict anti-COVID-19 policies. In other countries, the economic recovery also revived electricity demand, especially in Europe (+4%, back to its 2019 level, with strong increases in Turkey, France, Germany, Italy and Poland), in the United States (+1.7%, slightly below the 2019 level), and in Russia (+6%). In China, the largest electricity consumer with 31% of global electricity consumption, power consumption rose by nearly 10%, exceeding its 2010-2019 trend (+7.3%/year) and its 2019 level, triggered by the economic recovery.
Global electricity consumption, which had contracted by 0.7% in 2020 due to the COVID-19 crisis, grew by +5.5% in 2021, +4.8% above its 2019 level. Global power consumption recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic (+5.5% in 2021).