Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, renewables have not stopped growing. On the contrary, they could become the most widespread energy source and definitively overtake coal by 2025.
"In 2025, renewables will become the largest source of electricity generation in the entire world, ending the fifty years of coal's reign as the primary energy supplier." This is the comment of Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency (Iea), on the sidelines of the press conference devoted to the annual renewables report. A statement that leaves little room for doubt or comment, and which comes after the deep crisis that has struck every sector of fossil fuels — from oil to gas to coal — over the past months marked by the pandemic. In the report "Renewables 2020", presented last 10 November, it is stated that 90 per cent of all new installed capacity was covered by renewables, led by wind, hydropower and photovoltaics. In total, this amounts to a record level of 200 gigawatts for 2020 alone.
Despite global energy demand falling by 5 per cent — the largest reduction since the Second World War — electricity generated from renewable sources is expected to increase by 7 per cent in 2020, according to the report's estimates.
In this scenario, total wind and solar photovoltaic capacity is set to surpass natural gas as early as 2023 and coal in 2024. By 2025, new offshore wind capacity is estimated to account for one fifth of the total wind market, marking a further increase for this source.
"Renewable energy is defying the difficulties caused by the pandemic, showing robust growth while other fuels struggle," Birol said in a statement. "The sector's resilience and positive prospects are clearly reflected in the continued appetite from investors, and the future looks even brighter thanks to the new capacity added that will allow new records to be set for this year and the next."
India and the European Union will be at the forefront of expansion, with a roughly 10 per cent increase in renewable capacity next year — the fastest growth since 2015. This result will be achieved through the restart of projects put on standby due to the pandemic. India alone is expected to double its installed capacity in 2021 compared to the year that is drawing to a close.
"Governments can address these issues to help deliver a sustainable recovery and accelerate clean energy transitions. In the United States, for example, if the proposed clean electricity policies of the incoming US administration were implemented, they could lead to a much faster deployment of solar photovoltaics and wind power, contributing to a more rapid decarbonisation of the energy sector."
The role that politics will play in the coming years weighs heavily on the energy transition. For this reason, the Iea itself argues that measures will be needed to sustain the momentum of renewable energy. If countries were to address, for example, the issue of the end of incentives in certain key markets, the report estimates that global solar photovoltaic and wind installations could increase by a further 25 per cent in 2022.
Looking at Europe, the countries causing the greatest concern are those that still appear to be lagging behind in the transition to low-emissions energy production, including Italy. In the study "Vision or division? What do National Energy and Climate Plans tell us about the Eu power sector in 2030?" published by Ember, it is noted that Belgium, Bulgaria, Romania and Poland have the least ambitious targets when it comes to progress in the electricity sector over the entire next decade. Meanwhile, Italy and Germany would be making excessively slow progress, which is a worrying fact given the size of their economies and their electricity demand. Together, the two countries account for 40 per cent of emissions from the energy sector in 2030.
The report forecasts that fossil fuels will still generate 25 per cent of the EU's electricity by 2030, and that this would lead Europe to slow the phase-out of coal or gas by 2030. As for gas, the blame would lie with countries such as Italy, Germany and Belgium, which envisage a growing role for fossil gas by 2030.
Italy, again according to the report, could be one of the European Union countries most dependent on fossil fuels for electricity by that date. This is primarily due to the plan to expand the use of fossil gas in electricity generation, which will replace coal. The forecast is that the use of renewable electricity in Italy between 2018 and 2030 will be below the EU average, and that Italy will be responsible for around 10 per cent of emissions from the EU's energy sector, as well as being the third largest emitter for emissions linked to electricity generation.
But the Iea director is nonetheless optimistic, despite the policies of some countries. He forecasts that renewables will provide one third of the world's electricity within five years and that "their total capacity will be double the entire energy capacity of today's China," Birol concludes.
