• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
Danske Bank Quits New Fossil Fuel Financing January 23, 2023
Extreme Warming Ahead Even as Worst-Case Scenarios Grow ‘Obsolete’ January 23, 2023
Notley Scorches Federal Just Transition Bill as Fossil CEO Calls for Oilsands Boom January 23, 2023
IRON OXIDE: New Battery Brings Long-Duration Storage to Grids, 750 Jobs to West Virginia January 23, 2023
BREAKING: GFANZ Banks, Investors Pour Hundreds of Billions into Fossil Fuels January 17, 2023
Next
Prev

China Leads Rapid Renewables Growth in Revised IEA Projection

October 10, 2017
Reading time: 3 minutes

AukeHoekstra/Twitter

AukeHoekstra/Twitter

 

Global renewable electricity capacity will grow 43% through 2022, led by rapid expansion in China and India, after delivering two-thirds of new installed capacity in 2016 and outpacing declining coal and natural gas for the first time, the International Energy Agency calculates in a report released last week.

The estimate represents a “significant upward revision”, Carbon Brief reports, for an agency that has been better known for downplaying its assessments of renewable energy technologies and their growth potential.

  • Concise headlines. Original content. Timely news and views from a select group of opinion leaders. Special extras.
  • Everything you need, nothing you don’t.
  • The Weekender: The climate news you need.
New!
Subscribe

IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol pointed to China, in particular, as the catalyst for solar and broader renewable energy growth.

“Along with new policies that spur competition in several other countries, this Chinese dynamic has led to record-low announced prices of solar PV and onshore wind, which are now comparable or even lower than new-built fossil fuel alternatives,” he wrote in the foreword to the report. “This is radically changing the narrative in other emerging economies, which are now looking at renewables as attractive options to sustain their development.”

That recognition comes none too soon, Carbon Brief observes, given the “self-reinforcing nature of bad forecasts from authoritative agencies” like the IEA. Noted Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) founder Michael Liebreich recently: “When the IEA and [the U.S. Energy Information Administration] say—as they did for many years after I founded New Energy Finance—that modern renewable energy will produce less than 1% of the world’s electricity many decades into the future, that deters serious politicians, investors, or business people from backing them.”

But the latest IEA report tells a different story. Around the world, countries brought 165 gigawatts (GW) of new renewable capacity online last year, Carbon Brief reports, and “a further 920 GW of renewable capacity will be installed by 2022, according to [IEA] forecasts.” New solar capacity grew by 74 GW, nearly a 50% increase over 2015.

By 2022, the IEA predicts, continuing cost reductions and supportive market dynamics will bring solar alone to 740 GW of installed capacity, more than the total installed electricity capacity in India and Japan combined. Renewables will account for 29% of global generation in by that year, compared to 24% today, Reuters notes.

But centre stage in the report went to China, which has increased its solar photovoltaic capacity almost 800-fold in the last decade, from 100 megawatts to 77 GW. The country has already exceeded its 2020 target for PV installations, and is now the “undisputed leader” in several renewables sectors. “Chinese companies now account for 60% of the world’s solar cell manufacturing capacity,” Carbon Brief notes. “This means market and policy developments in China will have global implications on the deployment and prices of solar around the world.”

“In one year, China will install the equivalent of the total history of solar development in Germany,” Dr. Paolo Frankl, one of the lead authors of the report, told journalists.

The IEA found that wind capacity continued to increase in 2016, but its growth rate was down 20% compared to the previous year.

“Hydropower capacity expansion was also lower than in 2015. The Chinese market declined for a third year in a row, although there was strong growth in Brazil. Despite this, hydropower will remain the largest source of renewable electricity generation in 2022 under the IEA’s forecast, followed by wind, solar PV, and bioenergy,” Carbon Brief states. “Coal will remain the largest source of electricity generation, however growth in renewable generation will be twice as large as that of gas and coal combined over the next five years.”

In its report on the IEA release, InsideClimate News put the international results alongside a study from the Natural Resources Defense Council that showed similar renewable energy growth in the United States. “2016, from a U.S. perspective, was a great year for renewable energy and energy efficiency,” said Amanda Levin, a co-author of the NRDC report. “China is still the largest source of new power, but in the U.S., we’re seeing an increase in renewables year over year.”

In more recent news, BNEF analysis showed global clean energy investment growing to US$66.9 billion in the third quarter of 2017. Financial activity grew 35% in China, to a world-leading $23.8 billion, 45% in the U.S., to $14.8 billion, and 43% in Europe, to $11.6 billion, while declining 49% in India, to $1.1 billion. Canada did not make the top-15 list of global clean energy investors.



in Energy / Carbon Pricing & Economics

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

EcoAnalytics
Media, Messaging, & Public Opinion

Albertans Want a Just Transition, Despite Premier’s Grumbling

January 23, 2023
185
Climate Denial & Greenwashing

Exxon Had the Right Global Warming Numbers Through Decades of Denial: Study

January 17, 2023
223
Canadian Nuclear Laboratories/flickr
Hydrogen

Hydrogen Patents Reveal Shift Toward Cleaner Technologies

January 16, 2023
89

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

RL0919/wikimedia commons

Danske Bank Quits New Fossil Fuel Financing

January 23, 2023
2.1k
@tongbingxue/Twitter

Extreme Warming Ahead Even as Worst-Case Scenarios Grow ‘Obsolete’

January 23, 2023
262
Rachel Notley/Facebook

Notley Scorches Federal Just Transition Bill as Fossil CEO Calls for Oilsands Boom

January 23, 2023
247
James Vincent Wardhaugh/flickr

Canada Sidelines Ontario’s Ring of Fire, Approves Separate Mining Project

December 4, 2022
374
Weirton, WV by Jon Dawson/flickr

IRON OXIDE: New Battery Brings Long-Duration Storage to Grids, 750 Jobs to West Virginia

January 23, 2023
492
TALL ORDER -- A field of “Freedom” giant miscanthus on Mississippi State University’s South Farm towers over research agronomist Brian Baldwin. Baldwin’s 12-year study of grassy feedstocks indicates the plant is a viable resource for biofuel production. (Photo by MSU Ag Communications/Scott Corey)

Bamboo-like Crop Could Cut U.S. Midwest Warming by 1°C

May 4, 2022
957

Recent Posts

United Nations

Salvage of $20B ‘Floating Time Bomb’ Delayed by Rising Cost of Oil Tankers

January 27, 2023
4
EcoAnalytics

Albertans Want a Just Transition, Despite Premier’s Grumbling

January 23, 2023
185
Sergio Boscaino/flickr

Dubai Mulls Quitting C40 Cities Over ‘Costly’ Climate Target

January 24, 2023
84
hangela/pixabay

New UK Coal Mine Faces Two Legal Challenges

January 24, 2023
43

Gas Stoves Enter U.S. Climate Culture War, Become ‘Bellwether’ for Industry

January 22, 2023
72
Jeff Hitchcock/flickr.

BREAKING: GFANZ Banks, Investors Pour Hundreds of Billions into Fossil Fuels

January 23, 2023
493
Next Post
Bureau of Land Management California/Flickr

California Wine Country Wildfires Kill 15, Burn 80,000 Acres in 18 Hours

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}