Enabled by policies, investments and innovations, renewable energy technologies, such as solar photovoltaics and wind power, are cost-competitive with fossil-fuel-based power generation alternatives in countries around the world.
➡️Costs of energy storage solutions, such as lithium-ion batteries, critical for providing flexibility services to a decarbonized grid, are rapidly approaching cost competitiveness.
➡️ Wind and solar energy combined now generate 10% of global electricity for the first time ever.
➡️ Low-carbon power sources including solar, wind, hydro, nuclear and bioenergy combined generated 38% of the world’s electricity in 2021, overtaking coal, with Europe leading the way and China and Japan making over a tenth of their electricity from wind and solar for the first time.
➖However, the latest IPCC assessment indicates that average annual GHG emissions between 2010 and 2019 were higher than in any previous decade.
✔️To contain the average temperature increase to below 1.5°C, the global GHG emissions must peak before 2025 and be reduced by 43% by 2030.
✔️At the same time, methane, the second-fastest-growing GHG emission behind CO2, would also need to be reduced by about a third by 2030.
✔️ According to IEA’s Net Zero by 2050 report, annual capacity additions of solar and wind need to be higher than 1,000 GW, four times the record installation levels achieved in recent years.
✅ Additionally, clean energy investments would have to triple by 2030 to meet demand in a sustainable way, according to the IEA. While investments in energy transition have approximately doubled over the last decade, China, the United States and the EU account for more than 80% of the investments.
So, the strengthening of governments’ and companies’ efforts to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels is key in this issue, but individuals’ “civic duty” towards energy use must also intensify.
EUEA, as RES industry association, aims to contribute to the transparent development of renewable energy and energy efficiency markets in Ukraine, through the promotion of fair and sustainable business practices, raising public awareness of energy issues, and by influencing government energy policy.
Resources: Ember, “Global Electricity Review 2022”, 30 March 2022; WEF, Fostering Effective Energy Transition 2022, 11 May 2022.
