The new drive for energy security prompted by the fossil fuel price crisis will accelerate the development of renewable energy, the International Energy Agency has said in a new report.
“Renewables were already expanding quickly, but the global energy crisis has kicked them into an extraordinary new phase of even faster growth as countries seek to capitalise on their energy security benefits,” IEA head Fatih Birol said in comments on the report, titled Renewables 2022.
“The world is set to add as much renewable power in the next 5 years as it did in the previous 20 years,” Birol also said, despite warnings from the mining industry that there are looming shortages of key metals such as copper, without which the energy transition will slow down.
As a result of these developments, the International Energy Agency now expects global renewable power capacity to expand by 2,400 GW between 2022 and 2027. The amount is equal to China’s total power generation capacity to date, the IEA noted.
The above projection represents a 30-percent increase on last year’s renewable power additions forecast by the IEA, “highlighting how quickly governments have thrown additional policy weight behind renewables.”
The report also said that renewables will account for as much as 90 percent of power generation capacity expansion in the five-year period under review, and will replace coal as the world’s largest source of electricity by 2025.
Europe is seen doing particularly well in renewable power capacity additions, with amounts to be added between 2022 and 2027 seen by the IEA at twice the amount added in the previous five years.
In the United States, the Inflation Reduction Act will act as a major motivator for the expansion of wind and solar generation capacity, the IEA also said, adding that China and India will also be among the drivers of the coming wind and solar build-up.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com