Solar And Wind Are Taking Over The World
We hear it all the time. Only it is wrong.
Today, solar and wind make up just 0.8% of global energy. In a quarter century, in 2040 – assuming all nations live up to their Paris promises – solar and wind will produce less than 4% of global energy.
These stats come from the latest global energy overview from the most respected institution, the International Energy Agency (the OECD for energy) in its World Energy Outlook 2017 from November 2017. Unfortunately, the full report and much of the statistics is not free. Moreover, the split into individual renewables like wind, solar PV etc. is not made public (though the IEA model keeps track of them all).
The pie charts here use the data from the new estimates of power demand from 1990-2040 including the latest globally available data from 2016 (p648). It also shows the split into individual renewables obtained from a data request to IEA
Power Generation Analysis, World Energy Outlook: Energy Demand Division, Directorate of Sustainability, Technology and Outlooks.
"The New Policies Scenario is the central scenario of this Outlook, and aims to provide a sense of where today’s policy ambitions seem likely to take the energy sector. It incorporates not just the policies and measures that governments around the world have already put in place, but also the likely effects of announced policies, as expressed in official targets or plans. The Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) made for the Paris Agreement provide important guidance as to these policy intentions in many countries, although in some cases these are now supplemented or superseded by more recent announcements – including the decision by the US administration to withdraw from the Agreement."
Source: https://www.iea.org/weo/
Public Sector Reforms - Local Governance, PFM and Service Delivery - Localised Climate Adaptation
6 年https://www.iea.org/weo2018/
Public Sector Reforms - Local Governance, PFM and Service Delivery - Localised Climate Adaptation
6 年look at the 2018 report - https://www.iea.org/weo2018/
Managing Director en National Standard Finance, LLC ( NSF). More than 25K contacts
6 年Very interesting, thank you
Fully agree with Dominique Coster, looking at this on a regional and country level gives you at totally different perspective. Both sets of numbers are correct. I would argue that the above 20% renewable markets are a very significant development, considering the investments and outcomes.
CEO Zymedyne - Honorary Research Lecturer at Macquarie University - Adjunct Assistant Professor at University of Calgary
7 年Wow! a lot of agenda pushing from both sides. Why does every article turn into Click bait for extremists on both sides? If you take the article for what it is, it's saying that the rapid demise of fossil fuel is somewhat exaggerated and even the most rosy of optimists will only dare say Solar and wind will capture 40% of the market by 2040. That's fine and in the end, we all want cheap, renewable energy, who doesn't. For the here and now though technologies should have a 3-pronged approach of increasing energy efficiency, reducing waste and looking to improve the long term viable alternatives. I'd love for once to see a discussion about improving the hear and now as opposed to waving hands in the air about the future. if we solve the here and now problems, the future will take care of itself. feel free to rant your extreme responses now.