New IEA Report: Renewables, 2022

From the International Energy Agency.  Report here.

Renewables become the largest source of global electricity generation by early 2025, surpassing coal. Their share of the power mix is forecast to increase by 10 percentage points over the forecast period, reaching 38% in 2027. Renewables are the only electricity generation source whose share is expected to grow, with declining shares for coal, natural gas, nuclear and oil generation. Electricity from wind and solar PV more than doubles in the next five years, providing almost 20% of global power generation in 2027.

Commercializing and scaling nuclear fusion is likely at least a decade or so out, and in the meantime, we’ll be relying on renewable energy to get us to a cleaner energy economy. The IEA issued a report forecasting that renewables will be the largest source of electricity globally by 2025. This latest report reflects an upwards revision on renewables, which are growing share much faster than expected just even a year ago.

Driving this change is faster than expected adoption of renewables from China, the EU, the US, and India which are all quickly implementing and introducing policies in reaction to the energy crisis. The other major drivers are solar (which, thanks to learning curves, has become an economically feasible energy source in the last few years) and wind (which is expected to grow more linearly over the coming years).

It’s tough to look at both the nuclear fusion breakthrough and the IEA renewables report and not be optimistic that we may just figure out this whole energy/climate thing sooner than most people would have thought just a few years ago. But there’s still a lot of work to be done.