Dec 20, 2022
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has raised its global forecast for renewables growth in what it calls its “largest ever upward revision” for the sector.
The latest revision means the agency now forecasts 76 percent more growth than it did just two years ago, the Carbon Brief analysis shows.
This means extra wind, solar and other renewable technologies equivalent to the entire electricity system of India being built by 2026, on top of last year’s projections.
The agency says this year’s forecast accounts for a wave of new policies introduced largely in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and soaring fossil fuel prices.
The IEA’s latest annual report on the status of renewables notes that the global energy crisis is “pushing the accelerator on renewable energy expansion”, particularly in the EU, US, China and India. It says utility-scale solar and onshore wind power are now the cheapest options for new generation in “a significant majority of countries worldwide”.
Carbon Brief, the influential Paris-based agency, now expects renewables to surpass coal as the largest source of electricity generation by “early 2025”. The installed capacity of solar power alone is set to overtake that of coal in 2027.