Renewables 2024 Analysis and forecast to 2030

Abstract:

This edition of the IEA’s annual Renewables market report provides forecasts for the deployment of renewable energy technologies in electricity, transport and heat to 2030, while also exploring key challenges facing the industry and identifying barriers that are preventing faster growth.

At the COP28 UN Climate Change Conference in December, governments agreed to work together to triple the world’s installed renewable energy capacity by 2030. Renewables 2024 offers a comprehensive country-level analysis on tracking progress towards the global tripling target based on current policies and market developments. Additionally, it assesses the challenges to faster expansion.

For the first time, the report features a special chapter on renewable fuels, including bioenergy, biogases, hydrogen, and e-fuels. It forecasts their role in global energy demand by 2030 and their potential for decarbonising the industry, building, and transport sectors.

In addition to its detailed market analysis and forecasts, the report also examines key developments for the sector, including policy trends driving deployment, solar PV and wind manufacturing, the costs of renewable technologies, electrolyser and renewable capacity for hydrogen production, prospects for renewable energy companies, and system integration of renewables, along with grid connection queues.

Here are some of the key findings:

• The world is set to add more than 5 500 gigawatts (GW) of new renewable energy capacity between 2024 and 2030 – almost three times the increase seen between 2017 and 2023. That includes 670 GW this year alone.

• Based on these trends, renewables are on course to generate close to half of global electricity by 2030. Solar PV and wind alone are set to double their share of the global electricity mix to 30% by the end of the decade.

• China is on course to account for almost 60% of all renewable capacity installed worldwide between now and 2030, based on current market trends and today's policy settings by governments. That would make it home to almost half of the world’s total renewable power capacity by the end of this decade, up from a share of one third in 2010. While China is adding the biggest volumes of renewables, India is growing at the fastest rate among major economies.

• In terms of technologies, solar PV is forecast to account for 80% of the growth in global renewable capacity between now and 2030 – the result of the construction of new large solar power plants as well as an increase in rooftop solar installations by companies and households.

• Despite ongoing challenges, the wind sector is also poised for a recovery, with the rate of expansion doubling between 2024 and 2030, compared with the period between 2017 and 2023.

• Already, solar PV and wind are the cheapest options to add new electricity generation in almost every country.

• Renewables are being deployed so fast, they are outpacing governments’ own existing targets. Nearly 70 countries that collectively account for 80% of global renewable power capacity are poised to reach or surpass their current renewable ambitions for 2030.

• The current projected growth is not fully in line with reaching the goal set by nearly 200 governments at the COP28 climate change conference to triple the world’s renewable capacity this decade – the report forecasts global capacity will reach 2.7 times its 2022 level by 2030. But IEA analysis, as reflected in the report’s ‘accelerated case’ forecast, indicates that fully meeting the tripling target is entirely possible if governments take near-term opportunities for action.

References:

1. Renewables 2024 – Analysis - IEA