Where Renewable Energy Is Growing (And Where It Is Stalling)

Renewable energy capacity around the world more than doubled in the 10 years between 2013 and 2022, a newly released report from the International Renewable Energy Agency has found. However, progress has been quite lopsided, with large capacities having been built up in Europe and huge progress especially in the last decade happening in China.

Other regions, namely South and Central America as well as the Middle East and Africa, have neither large capacity already built nor have they experienced above-average growth over the specified time period—creating the danger of being left behind in the global energy transition. International financial aid to developing countries in support of clean energy research, development and production having been cut down in 2021 to below 2012 levels is certainly not helping this issue.

Countries in Asia and Oceania other than China showed above-average growth of renewable energy as its capacity is now two-and-a-half times as big as it was in 2013. The region overtook North America in megawatts of renewable energy installed in the process, but given the continents’ much larger population, it is safe to say that renewable energy progress in Asia has been relatively slower outside of China.

Developmental aid for renewable energy is actually codified in the UN Sustainable Development Goals, which calls from an enhancement of payments. This had happened to some degree between 2012 and 2017 when global payments tracked by the agency rose from an annual $10.8 billion to $25.4 billion. After that year, however, international payments came down to $14.8 billion in 2018 and just $10.4 billion in 2021, the latest year on record. Nevertheless, the installed renewable energy capacity in developed countries more than doubled per capita over the past 10 years. Given the currently rather low levels of renewable energy capacity in most countries in question, this just slightly above-average growth will not enable the nations in question to catch up. The International Renewable Energy Agency also found that public investment in renewables around the globe has slumped compared to the average of the past decade and stood at only $18 billion in 2021, compared to $20 previously.

Progress too slow?

The current progress in renewable energy installation means that in 2021, 27.8% of the world’s electricity was created via renewable sources. This was only a slight 0.2% increase over 2020 as non-renewable energy production—conversely also a specialty of China—picked up more speed once again. As 2022 saw another boost for coal power projects in China this is unlikely to change in the coming year despite continuing progress in renewable energy capacity installation. The biggest factor in renewable energy creation in 2021 was hydroelectricity, followed by wind and solar.

Considering not just electricity, but all energy sources in the world, renewables’ share shrinks once more to just 8% in 2022. This means that renewable energy still has a long way to go, especially in a 2030 net zero emissions scenario, as seen in data by the International Energy Agency. The numbers show that to achieve that goal, or likely any net zero goal in the current century, the expansion of renewable energy capacity—in developing countries and overall—is still moving too slowly.

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Charted by Statista