Renewables met 100% of global demand in 2025

 From Renew Economy

Record amounts of new solar and wind generation capacity met 99 per cent of global electricity demand growth in 2025, new data shows, as the rise and rise of big batteries helps transform solar into a “round-the-clock resource” – with Australia leading the charge.

According to the Global Electricity Review 2026 from energy think tank Ember, renewable power generation increased by 887 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2025, outpacing electricity demand growth of 849 TWh for the year.

Solar – as noted above – was the big star of the year, with new PV generation meeting 75 per cent of the net increase in global power demand, growing by a record 636 TWh in 2025 to reach 2,778 TWh in 2025, a 30 per cent jump on 2024.

The increase in global solar capacity [output] was 18 times as large as that of gas (+36 TWh), which was the only fossil power source that grew in 2025, Ember says.

A separate report, the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Global Energy Review says the global solar juggernaut contributed the largest structural increase ever recorded in a single year for any electricity generation technology in 2025, and helped renewables outpace coal growth for the first time. 

In the context of the current Middle East conflict, Ember notes that the solar generation added in 2025 would be sufficient to displace gas-fired electricity equivalent to all LNG exports through the Strait of Hormuz in the same year, estimated at 550 TWh. 

Global solar generating capacity [output] has been doubling roughly every three years, Ember says, rising from 1,333 TWh in 2022 and overtaking wind power for the first time globally in 2025. Both solar and wind are expected to overtake nuclear in 2026.

Wind energy, too, had a bumper year according to a separate Ember report, which shows that the global industry installed a record-smashing 165 gigawatts (GW) – or 205 TWh – in 2025, marking the highest ever level of new installations for the wind power industry.

Australia followed the global wind trend, charting 43 per cent year-on-year growth with 1,200 new wind projects coming online in 2025, compared to 835 in 2024 – bringing the total number of wind projects by the end of 2025 to 13,515. 

“Australia recorded a significant increase in wind generation … due to stronger wind conditions and major new wind farms coming online, such as the 412 MW Goyder South wind farm and the 923 MW MacIntyre Wind Farm, Australia’s largest-ever wind farm project,” the report says. 

But Ember notes that fewer projects achieving final investment decision and approval for the coming years, due to planning delays, inflation and community opposition, points to a drop in the future pipeline.

In combination, wind and solar now contribute more than half of all global renewable generation and, combined with nuclear (8.9%) and hydro, low-carbon sources reached 42.6 per cent of total electricity generation in 2025, up 9.1 percentage points from 33.5% in 2015. 

On the other side of the coin, the share of fossil generation fell to 57.4 per cent, down from 66.5 per cent in 2015. This was the first year since 2020 without an increase in electricity generation from fossil fuels and only the fifth year without a rise this century.

For storage, 2025 was also a landmark year, in which battery economics reached a turning point, with battery pack prices for stationary storage falling to a record low of $US70/kWh – down 45 per cent on 2024 – allowing dispatchable solar with batteries to be delivered for around $76/MWh.

“This makes it cheaper and faster to build than a new gas power plant, particularly in countries reliant on expensive LNG imports,” the report says. 

Globally, battery storage capacity additions jumped by 46 per cent from 2024 to an estimated 247 GWh, according to Ember – enough to shift around 14 per cent of global solar generation from daytime to other hours.

According to the IEA, battery storage was the fastest-growing power sector technology in 2025, with the roughly 110 GW of new capacity added over the course of the year beating the largest-ever annual capacity additions for natural gas.

“Battery storage is the fastest growing power technology today,” the IEA says.

“Installed capacity is now eleven times higher than in 2021. Lithium‑iron phosphate (LFP) batteries now account for around 90% of deployments; while less energy‑dense than rival chemistries commonly used in EVs, LFP batteries are typically cheaper and better suited to more frequent cycling. Just five years ago, the market share of LFP batteries in deployments was well below 50%.”

Ember marks 2025 as the year that batteries are “finally moving into the mainstream” to help shift solar power beyond daylight hours and unlock the next phase of solar expansion.

“Batteries have outgrown their initial niche role as a grid stability service and are now core infrastructure designed to store excess daytime electricity and release it in the evening and at night,” the Ember report says.

In this regard, Ember says Australia is leading the world, as one of two countries alongside Chile that could shift more than 50% of the new solar capacity added in 2025 with new battery capacity, transforming PV generation from a daytime solution to “a nearly round-the-clock resource” and the most affordable pathway to meet rapidly rising electricity demand.

“Australia and Chile stand out for adding relatively small amounts of battery capacity in absolute terms, 9 GWh and 4 GWh respectively, but large enough relative to their solar growth to make a material difference,” the report says. 

“Australia shows how batteries can quickly reshape power markets once deployed at scale. In Q4-2025, during the high-value evening peak hours (18:00-20:00) in the National Electricity Market, batteries set prices 36% of the time – doubling from 18% in Q4-2024, displacing gas and hydro as price setters.

So much for renewables leading to higher prices!

“This led to significantly lower price volatility compared with Q4-2024, with average spot prices of around $100 per MWh during 18:00-20:00, less than half of the Q4-2024 average spot prices during these hours. This helped bring overall prices lower, with wholesale prices averaging $50/MWh, a $39/MWh (-44%) reduction from Q4 2024.

These dynamics, says Ember, show batteries are already delivering tangible system benefits by reducing reliance on expensive fossil generation and stabilising prices at the most critical times of day.

“We have firmly entered the era of clean growth,” says Ember managing director Aditya Lolla.

“Clean energy is rapidly redefining the foundation of energy security in a volatile world. It is already helping countries reduce exposure to fossil fuel imports and costs while meeting rising electricity demand.”

 It's clear that emissions from electricity (~30% of total emissions) have peaked.  It's now obvious to everybody, except those who get paid not to see the truth, that reliance on oil and gas is an economic and a strategic risk.  EV sales have risen 50%, as consumers have seen the light, but it must also be self-evident to all in government that it would be far less risky to permanently uncouple economies from oil.  So it is likely that emissions from land transport (~18% of emissions) will peak soon, as EV sales explode.  And governments will force their electricity producers to install more solar and batteries and less gas, to reduce reliance on LNG shipped through the straits of Hormuz.

Also, the oil crisis will most likely lead to a recession, because of a combination of physical constraints on output (for example, Europe has just 6 weeks of aviation fuel left), on confidence (consumer and business) and on incomes (a jump in inflation.)  I lived through the 1973 and 1979 oil crises, both of which led to deep recessions and surging inflation, and this crisis is bigger than those two. In fact, the oil supply shock is bigger than those two combined.  And the consequent fall in oil demand will only be partially replaced as economies recover.  

Emissions have peaked.  Unambiguously good news.

We are winning, despite Trump & big oil

 From Claes de Vreese

And now something positive:

Solar and wind energy production in the EU surpasses fossil energy for the first time.

#TippingPoint

Source: https://dr.dk

 

Despite big oil, despite Trump, despite the Right's betrayal of ordinary people: we are doing it. Too slowly, certainly, but the trend is in the right direction, on renewables, on EVs, and on heat pumps.

Victory is possible.

Fossil fuels need 500 times more mining

Canadian oil sands

 

 From Distilled

Decarbonizing the world’s economy will require an enormous amount of minerals like copper, lithium, nickel and cobalt. Everything from electric vehicles to solar panels to transmission lines will require these raw materials.

In some cases, mining these minerals has disastrous consequences for workers, indigenous communities, and the environment. This has led some clean energy skeptics to argue that decarbonization will be bad for both humans and the environment.

But transitioning to clean energy will mean we no longer have to mine and extract vast quantities of fossil fuels each year. A clean energy transition will help us avoid the worst effects of climate change; it will save millions of lives currently lost to air pollution each year; and, importantly, it will reduce the total amount of environmentally and socially harmful mining each year.

In 2020, 7 million tons of minerals were mined globally for low-carbon energy, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). (These are often referred to as “transition minerals.”) In order to limit warming to 2 degrees celsius, we’ll need to scale up that production to about 28 million tons per year.

That’s a lot of transition minerals. But how does it compare to the mining and extraction of today’s fossil fuel economy?

Every year, about 15 billion tons of fossil fuels are mined and extracted. That’s about 535 times more mining than a clean energy economy would require in 2040.

Part of the reason for this massive difference in mining requirements is the fact that fossil fuel infrastructure is much less energy efficient than clean energy technology. Gas-powered cars are three times less efficient than electric vehicles. Gas furnaces are three to four times less efficient than heat pumps. Coal, oil, and gas all need to be transported long distances from mine or well to the source of combustion.

A clean energy economy just requires much less energy than a fossil fuel economy.

But there’s another important reason for this difference. Fossil fuel infrastructure requires constant fuel input. Building a coal or gas power plant, like building a wind or solar project, requires a lot of materials and energy input upfront. But for a fossil fuel power plant, construction is just the beginning. In order to generate power, you need to burn coal or gas every day for decades. Wind and solar projects, by comparison, don’t require any ongoing fuel input.

Still, both the environmental and human impacts of mining minerals for the energy transition can’t be ignored. Policymakers should use every tool available to both minimize the total amount of clean energy minerals needed in the future and ensure those minerals are mined in socially and environmentally-friendly ways.

But make no mistake: transitioning away from fossil fuels is one of the most effective ways to protect both the environment and the most marginalized communities in the world.

Unlocking cheaper energy

The EU’s Green Deal aims to ensure that the European Union achieves climate neutrality by 2050, through a comprehensive transition to renewable energies. Image by Rawpixel (CC0)

From East Anglia Bylines

 

National targets for solar and wind power will see reliance on natural gas massively decline, reducing electricity price volatility across Europe, with major beneficiaries including the UK and Ireland, the Nordics, and the Netherlands.

Hitting the current national 2030 quotas for solar and wind energy could reduce the volatility of electricity markets by an average of 20% across 29 European countries, according to a new study from the University of Cambridge.

The intensity of spikes in power prices are predicted to fall in every country by the end of the decade if commitments to green energy are met, as natural gas dependency is cut.

The UK and Ireland would be the biggest beneficiaries, with 44% and 43% reductions in the severity of electricity price spikes by 2030, compared with last year. Germany could experience a 31% decline in electricity price volatility, with the Netherlands and Belgium seeing price spikes ease by 38% and 33% respectively.

The simulations conducted for the new study show that scaling up renewable energy minimises the market impact of fluctuations in natural gas price – increasing stability even when considering the reliance of renewable technologies on weather.

Some EU leaders and energy ministers have called for renewables targets on grounds of energy security as well as decarbonisation, particularly since Putin’s war on Ukraine stemmed the flow of Russian gas.

The study, published in the journal Nature Energy, calculates in detail how such aims would affect the volatility of wholesale electricity prices in energy markets across Europe.

“The volatility of energy prices is a major cause of damage to national economies,” said Laura Diaz Anadon, the University of Cambridge’s Professor of Climate Change Policy.

“Consumers are still reeling from sharp increases in electricity prices brought about by natural gas shortages following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” said Anadon. “We show that hitting renewables targets reduce the likelihood of such price spikes in the future.”

Daniel Navia, a researcher with the University’s Centre for Environment, Energy and Natural Resource Governance (CEENRG), said: “Meeting renewable energy targets is not only good for carbon neutrality, but we can see it is a boost to economic resilience”

“We had probably underestimated how costly energy price shocks are to our societies, and the last crisis has been a stark reminder.”

The Cambridge researchers used the University’s high performance computing facilities to model a wide range of factors – from fluctuations in weather patterns and energy demands to fuel capacity – to map the current and future grids of all 27 EU nations plus the UK and Switzerland.

They assessed electricity markets in 2030 based on the commitments to renewables as stated in each nation’s national energy and climate plan.

“The UK in particular is projected to see major benefits to its energy market stability from renewables,” said Anadon.

“The UK has struggled with its exposure to gas prices due to a lack of energy storage and limited connections to the European grid. This has led to more hours where electricity prices are set by natural gas.”

The research also suggests that wholesale prices of electricity could fall by over a quarter on average across all countries in the study by decade’s end if they stick to current national renewables targets.

Again, populations in the UK and Ireland stand to gain significantly, with electricity prices predicted to fall by around 45% by 2030, compared with the current situation.

Several of the Nordic nations could see over 60% reductions in electricity costs by 2030, while in Germany the price is predicted to fall by 34%, with Belgium seeing a similar drop of 31%. The study suggests the Netherlands could see the price of electricity fall by 41%.

Anti-renewables critics (mostly on the Right) maintain that renewables bring higher prices.  But this is because gas is used to balance the grid, and gas prices outside the USA have gone up 5-fold since early 2020.  New wind and solar and batteries have continued to fall in price over the last 5 years, solar and batteries especially.  Electricity from peaking plants is always expensive because they only run for a short time, yet their expenses must still be covered, meaning that the cost per MWh is several times the cost of other sources of power.

This ratio of gas peaking plants to wind and solar is obviously made even worse if the gas price has quintupled.  As battery costs decline, more and more of the need for peaking plants will be assumed by "big batteries" (and also by the batteries in our EVs.)  Costs will inevitably fall, not rise.

New record for Chile wind + solar

 From EMBER

Chile's wind and solar generation surpassed 40% of power for the first time in December last year 📈⚡ Throughout 2024, wind and solar generated a RECORD THIRD of Chile's electricity—more than double that in 2019. 🔗 Read more: ember-energy.org/lat...

Including hydro, renewables now make up  80% of total electricity generation.

China reaches 2030 renewables target in 2024

 From Leah Stokes

The news getting you down? I invite you to stare at this chart of solar and wind deployed capacity in China. They blew past their ambitious 2030 target... last July.

Six and a half years ahead of schedule.

Two-thirds of Chile's electricity from renewables

 From a tweet by LowCarbonPower.  

Chile, shining as the global frontrunner in solar energy, harnessed 17% of its electricity from sunrays in 2022. This year it's set to break records again, likely eclipsing the 20% mark. Data from February

Record lows for wind and solar costs

 From The Guardian

Renewable energy companies have promised to build and operate projects for record low minimum power prices in a New South Wales government tender that shows market interest is high.

The results of NSW’s first renewable energy tender were released on Monday, kicking off a series of auctions to be held over the next decade as the state transitions from coal-fired power generation.

The tender process fosters competition while providing companies and their backers with the confidence to develop projects, as winning bidders are guaranteed a minimum price for energy generation. When energy prices are higher than an undisclosed maximum, the spoils will be shared between the energy companies and the NSW government.

There were winning bids of less than $35 a megawatt hour for two solar farms and less than $50 a megawatt hour for a windfarm, the auction organiser, Aemo Services, said. These prices are perhaps the lowest for such auctions ever seen in Australia.

“The transition to clean renewable energy in NSW is essential and under way,” said the NSW energy minister, Penny Sharpe.

“This tender has shown how much demand there is to invest in NSW to build renewable energy and it is very welcome that this investment will also support 3,300 jobs over the next 10 years.”

The first tender locks in 1.4 gigawatts of new clean energy generation, bringing the total committed so far to 4.1 gigawatts as part of the former Coalition government’s 12 gigawatt target by 2030. This will go some way to replacing the coal-fired power stations dropping out of the market, such as AGL’s Liddell power plant did last week.

The new Labor state government has made public its concerns that the looming exit of Origin’s Eraring power station – the nation’s largest – in 2025 could leave the market short of supply in periods of high demand.

The tender also included long-duration renewable energy storage. The winning bidder, RNE Renewables, offered a battery that would supply 50 megawatts for at least eight hours (400 megawatt hours). AEMO Services did not provide the winning bid’s price.

Three of the four winning bids were for projects in NSW’s special renewable energy zones, including ACEN Australia’s 720 megawatt solar farm planned for New England and a 400 megawatt solar farm earmarked for the central-west Orana zone, also by ACEN. The battery is in the south-west zone.

Goldwind Australia also won for its 275 megawatt Coppabella windfarm in the southern tablelands.

AEMO Services estimates the projects will avert as much as 11m tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions over a 20-year period.

Wholesale power prices in the national electricity market averaged $83 a megawatt hour in the first quarter of 2023, down about two-thirds from the record levels of $264 averaged in the June quarter of last year.

The executive general manager of AEMO Services, Paul Verschuer, said the projects were first assessed on their “social licence commitments, deliverability and quality”, with a second level assessing financial value.

“This tender round has brought forward a range of innovative and considered initiatives from proponents, including ambitious projects to secure employment outcomes for First Nations people, careful and creative site selection and other community benefits,” Verschuer said.

To put this in perspective, A$35/MWh is US$24/MWh, A$50/MWh is US$35/MWh.  Or, another way of looking at it, A$35/MWh is 3.5 cents per kWh.  This is extraordinarily cheap.  I pay >30 c/kWh, as well as a monthly fixed charge for the "poles and wires".       

Because wind blows at night when the sun doesn't shine, and because wind is at worst uncorrelated with solar, and at best negatively correlated, it's easier to get a stable grid with a mixture of wind and solar.  Its average cost would be $42.50/MWh.  

Even if you have twice as much capacity as you would on average need, the cost per MWh would be $85, way below the cost of new coal or gas (>$120/MWh).  And that assumes that output is curtailed when there is too much wind and sun.  What if surplus green electricity is used to make green hydrogen and green methane instead of being curtailed?  Then the cost is lower.  What if we build more HV powerlines, connecting areas with different climates and time zones, minimising the need for overcapacity?  Then the cost is lower, too.  

In other words, at these prices, we can easily switch to 100% renewables at a lower cost than the existing grid.  (Last year in NSW, the average grid price was $198/MWh, the year before $81.)   So far this year, just 31% of NSW's electricity has come from renewables, including hydro.   The new renewable energy zone concept, which involves HV grid connections plus a guaranteed minimum price set by auction, will turbocharge NSW's switch to renewables. 

World CO2 emissions per capita vs % renewables

 An interesting chart (hat tip to Dan Neuman on Mastodon) from Our World In Data

Click on chart to get a clearer image

Observe how there is a broad negative correlation, which is what you'd expect.  But there are some outliers.  The dot at ~70% renewables and ~15 tonnes per capita is Canada.  Its high level of emissions is due to oil and gas production (just extracting oil and gas produces a heap of emissions, even before they are burnt); to transport; and to heating buildings.   So even though it generates ~70% of its electricity from renewables (hydro) it still has high emissions per capita.  

The aim of every country should be to migrate towards the bottom right-hand corner, where all its electricity comes from renewables, and its emissions are close to zero.  Because emissions for transport are a third dimension, accounting for some of the variation to either side of the implied regression line, replacing cars and lorries with EVs is also necessary.  

South Australia reaches 77% renewables

 So far this year, 77% of South Australia's electricity has come from renewables.   The percentage tends to be higher in the first quarter of the year, and falls in Q2 and Q3.  But last year in Q1, it was 69.3%, and the year before in  Q1, 64.2%.  In 2008, renewables totalled 5.8%, and the percentage has risen every year since then.   The state's last coal power station was closed in 2016.  SA is very well-endowed with wind and solar, like many places in the mid-latitudes, and its government plans that it will end up producing 5 times its own electricity needs, exporting the surplus to NSW and Victoria.  It is likely to exceed an annual average of 100% renewables in 4 years.  It will have taken 19 years to go from zero to 100%.  

It shows you what can be done.  At every step along the way, the Right mocked the state's renewable ambitions, and blamed every blackout on renewables, even when it was storms which blew down electricity pylons.  Yet renewables have triumphed.

For the whole NEM (national electricity market), the percentage of renewables (including hydro) is lower than in SA, but it is rising fast.  In Q1, it was 38.4%, compared with 33.7% in  Q1 last year and 29.6% in Q1 2021.  Victoria's offshore wind farms will likely push that state's renewable percentage over 100% by 2030, and NSW has ambitious renewables targets too.  

[The data and the chart come from OpenNem]

Pale yellow = rooftop solar
darker yellow = utility-scale solar
green = wind
orange = gas
purple = imports
(Source)
Chart is clearer if you click on it.  No doubt Blogger has a good reason for this quirk.

Germany reaches 46% renewables

From Reuters

Germany's power production from renewable energy rose in 2022, but it is still below the threshold needed to reach the target of generating 80% of electricity from renewables by 2030, the Environment Agency said on Monday.

Renewable energy is expected to account for around 46% of German power consumption [in 2022], up from 41% a year earlier, the agency said in its annual report.

Some 256 terrawatt hours (TWh) were generated last year, mainly from wind and solar power, up 9% year-on-year, but still below the target of 269 TWh for the year in order to achieve the goal of around 600 TWh by 2030, the agency added.

"The decisive course for a successful expansion process must be set promptly," Dirk Messner, the agency president, said in a statement.

With the goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2045, Berlin raised its renewable energy targets this year and passed several bills to ease restrictions and accelerate the rollout of wind and solar power, declaring the expansion to be of "outstanding public interest".

The need for renewables became ever more urgent with the decline of Russian fossil fuel imports to Europe's biggest economy following Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

Wind has generated a total of 128 TWh this year, of which 103 TWh came from onshore wind turbines, but the production could not reach its previous peak value of 2020 due to few new wind power installations, the agency said.

Only around 0.8% of land in Germany is currently designated for onshore wind power. Berlin earlier this year drafted a bill setting out a minimum percentage of land in each of the 16 federal states that must be available for wind farms.

Photovoltaic power generation rose 23% in 2022 year-on-year to 61 TWh, the agency said, citing a jump in installations and "very sunny weather".

Warmer weather also contributed to a "significant" drop in energy consumption for heating, along with citizens and companies saving on energy due to the fuel crisis. Heating from environmental heat and near-surface geothermal energy also rose 13% year-on-year.

To reach the target of 600 TWh of renewable electricity by 2030, output will have to grow by a compound rate of 11% per annum.  This is not very far above the 9% increase achieved last year, while the initiatives taken in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine have yet to take full effect.  

Solar panels are pictured on a floating photovoltaic power plant on Silbersee (Lake Silver) in Haltern am See, Germany, April 11, 2022. REUTERS/Thilo Schmuelgen

Indian metal producers switch to renewables

From Bloomberg

India’s metal producers are speeding up their transition to renewable power after a coal crisis led to a supply crunch and sky-high prices of the fossil fuel, according to Greenko Energy Holdings.

GIC Pte.-backed Greenko, one of India’s largest renewable energy companies, signed an agreement earlier this month with Hindalco Industries Ltd. to provide carbon-free electricity to the aluminum producer’s Odisha smelter for 25 years, following a similar deal with ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel India Ltd.

Greenko is now in talks with two to three other metal producers for round-the-clock power supply, co-founder Mahesh Kolli said, declining to name the firms.

The coal crisis is “a big factor that accelerated this transition” to renewable power from coal-based energy usage, Kolli said in an interview. The metals industry in India is willing to invest in renewable energy and build solar plants, adding a big funding source for clean energy, he said.

The country is emerging from an acute power crisis after a blistering summer and a post-pandemic industrial revival, which spurred electricity demand and overwhelmed domestic coal output. That prompted some metal producers to scour global markets for supplies, where prices are trading near record levels.

The increased expenses slashed profits of some of the biggest mills in India at a time when commodity prices were rallying to multi-year highs. They are now exploring ways to minimize their dependence on coal, with renewable energy looking more attractive.

“In this carbon-free energy that we are giving, this price is fixed for the next 25 years,” Kolli said. “So now at least when the price goes up, they benefit a lot.”

ounded in 2004, Hyderabad-based Greenko develops solar, wind and hydro power projects with 7.5 gigawatts of operating capacity across 15 states in India. Aside from GIC, it counts Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and Japan’s Orix Corp. as investors.

Greenko uses hydro-pumped storage technology to ensure round-the-clock power to the mills. Unlike Europe and the US, where storage costs are high, developers in India have been following a similar model to China and have managed to control the expenses using this cheaper technology, Kolli said.

Greenko expects to benefit as India’s renewable market opens up due to rapid industrial decarbonization. Currently, India’s renewable energy market is dominated by state-run power utilities as the government has ordered them to buy a certain percentage of clean electricity. To spur industrial carbon reduction efforts, India’s power ministry has changed rules to allow large power consumers to buy green electricity directly from a supplier of their choice without having to pay heavy charges to the state distribution utilities.

“The industrial decarbonization, without putting obligations on utilities, is a four to five times bigger opportunity for renewables,” Kolli said.

Renewable additions vs Nuclear

 From  Twitter thread by David Mitchell, founder of FindMyEV.com.au

Some one wanted a “normalised” graph of renewable additions vs nuclear. Here it is. Normalised against global population (kWh/capita). It’s not in kW because it’s not capacity, it’s production. So it’s global electricity production additions per capita, hence in kWh, [added production per person per year]

Renewables are in a classic exponential curve.
Nuclear peaked in the 80s and has been falling ever since.

Here are the IEA's data and forecasts for annual contributions to electricity demand, in TWh

Global changes in electricity generation, 2015-2024
yellow = renewables; green = gas; dark blue = coal; light blue = nuclear
Observe how *all* incremental electricity demand in 2024 is met via wind, solar and nuclear
See original chart here
I don't know why IEA thinks the additional renewables supply will be falling from 2022 to 2024.
Given the shock to the system from Russia's attack on Ukraine, I would have expected rollout of renewables to accelerate, not slow.

Renewables providing a quarter of US electricity

 From CleanTechnica

Electricity generated by renewable energy sources continues to grow month over month and year over year in the United States. In April 2022, the share of US electricity coming from renewable energy was up to 29.3%. That was up from 24.8% in April 2020 and 25.7% in April 2021.

Looking at the first four months of the year, renewables provided 25.5% of US electricity, while the figure for January–April 2020 was 21.7% and the figure for January–April 2021 was 22.5%.

Coal power (20.2% of US electricity) was down year over year in this time period (from 22% in January–April 2021), but is admittedly still a bit higher than it was in January–April 2020 (16.8%).

Electricity from natural gas is also down year over year, but only very slightly (34.7% for both years). Though, it has dropped significantly since January–April 2020 (39.6%).

Electricity from nuclear power continued to take a steady, step-by-step tumble.

Looking at their growth year over year, you can see strong and continuous expansion of solar-provided electricity and wind-provided electricity.  Solar grew from 2.9% in January–April 2020 to 3.6%in January–April 2021 to, eventually, 4.4% in January–April 2022. Wind rose from 9.2% to 10.3% to 12.2%.  Together, wind and solar were up from 12.1% in January–April 2020 to 13.9% in January–April 2021 to 16.7% January–April 2022.

Hydropower (6.5%) is holding approximately the same position as the same period in 2021 (6.5%), but it is down a significant chunk from April 2020 (8.2%).

 

How much space is needed for Europe's renewables

 From a tweet by Thomas Hillig

Interesting @Eurelectric slide at #PS22. The small green dots show the area that would be needed for #renewables to achieve the EU clean energy goals for 2030.

A common theme from denialists is that we'd have to cover the whole continent to build enough wind and solar farms to power everything.  Obvious nonsense.  What's more, you can use the space under wind turbines and solar panels to do other things, for example, live (rooftop solar), graze sheep, .....

Canberra escapes fossil fuel price shock

 From Shane Rattenbury, leader of the ACT (Australian Capital Territory) Greens:

High energy prices are dominating the news as the weather has well and truly flicked the switch to winter. The good news for Canberrans at this time is that our commitment to 100% renewable electricity is providing us with more stable electricity prices at a time...

...when market volatility is driving up prices in the rest of the country. Don’t just take our word for it, have a read of what the ABC has to say about it →

[From the ABC]

Australia is on the brink of an energy crisis, if it hasn't already started.

Wholesale power prices are currently more than five times last year's average price, sparking fears that some electricity retailers will collapse.

This calamity has been years in the making, but recent events have supercharged it.

Its causes are many: the war in Ukraine; extended cold snaps during La Niña; a lack of domestic gas supply; unreliable coal-fired power plants; and years of delays in building a grid based on renewable energy and batteries.

But amid this perfect storm of problems, one city — Canberra — is an oasis. Its residents are protected from the panic of electricity markets.

In fact, some of the money other Australians are paying for power will now, indirectly, be given to Canberra households, whose bills are expected to fall by an average of $23 over the next year.

In contrast, the typical household across the border in New South Wales will pay $800 more than its ACT equivalent.

This pay-off for Canberrans is the result of a decision taken a decade ago, which hasn't always been popular in the ACT.

In 2012, the ACT government began to implement its 100 per cent renewable electricity target.

The first step was small: a long-term contract with the Royalla solar farm just outside Canberra.

But the program — the large feed-in tariff scheme — kept growing.

The ACT locked in deals with the massive wind farms at Hornsdale in South Australia, and other large generators.

By 2020, the ACT was buying more electricity from renewable sources than Canberra used. It had reached its target.

There was a cost to going green.

The ACT was an early customer in an emerging industry. The prices in its 20-year supply contracts were above the forecast market electricity price.

Energy Minister Shane Rattenbury said Canberra households were expected, over time, to pay about $5.50 a week extra.

But he argued the environmental benefits were worth it — it was, he said, the price of kickstarting a strategically important industry.

However, markets are unpredictable.

The price in each of the ACT's long-term contracts — the so-called "strike price" — sometimes fell below the market price. This is happening again now.

When this happens, the generators sell their electricity at market price, as usual, but pay the difference to the ACT — and that dividend is used to reduce Canberra households' costs.

In the same way, when the strike price is above the market price, the ACT network pays the generators the difference, leading to higher prices for Canberrans.

The chart below compares the average strike price of the ACT's main renewable electricity contracts with the average market price over the past decade.

China's emissions fall for 3rd quarter in a row

 From Carbon Brief

China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions fell by an estimated 1.4% in the first three months of 2022, making it the third quarter in a row of falling emissions.

The new analysis for Carbon Brief, based on official figures and commercial data, shows that the three consecutive quarters, when seen together, represent the longest emissions decline in China for at least a decade.

Emissions peaked in summer 2021, as the government tightened policies on real estate to mitigate speculation and financial risk, before starting to fall in the third quarter last year. The fall in late 2021 and early 2022 was driven by the continued real estate slowdown and strong increases in clean energy. Starting from late March – at the very end of the period covered by this analysis – the main driver has become harsh Covid-19 control policies.

Furthermore, the second quarter of 2022 appears highly likely to extend the trend of falling emissions – even as the construction sector slowdown bottoms out – due to the impact of Covid lockdowns becoming much more pronounced.

In April, thermal power generation fell by the most since December 2015, the fall in cement output accelerated and apparent consumption of refined oil fell by almost as much as during the first Covid-19 lockdowns in 2020.

China has previously seen only two periods of stable or falling CO2 emissions in the past decade. First, during the construction and industrial slowdown of 2013-16, emissions growth halted for three years, with quarterly growth rates alternating between positive and negative.

Then, in the first quarter of 2020, the initial nationwide Covid-19 lockdowns resulted in a steep – but short-lived – drop in emissions.

After the lockdown ended in April 2020, the government responded to the negative economic shock with policies designed to boost construction, exports and industrial output, resulting in a highly energy- and carbon-intensive recovery seen in the chart below.

Emissions first exceeded their pre-Covid-19 level in the second quarter of 2020, but growth soon cooled. The string of three consecutive quarters of falling emissions – starting in the third quarter of 2021 – is the longest in at least a decade.

Year-on-year change in China’s quarterly CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and cement, %. Emissions are estimated from National Bureau of Statistics data on production of different fuels and cement, China Customs data on imports and exports and WIND Information data on changes in inventories, applying IPCC default emissions factors and annual emissions factors per tonne of cement production until 2019. Monthly values are scaled to annual data on fuel consumption in annual Statistical Communiques and National Bureau of Statistics annual Yearbooks. Chart by Joe Goodman for Carbon Brief using Highcharts.

So far, so good. China has a habit of stimulating growth by turning on the construction tap. So as growth recovers in China, we can expect emissions from cement and steel manufacture to recover back to previous peaks.  But the really interesting factor in the current emissions decline is the behaviour of the electricity sector:

The economic statistics for April report a steep drop in thermal power generation: output from thermal power plants fell 12% year-on-year. This is the largest reduction since December 2015, eclipsing the drop seen during the 2020 Covid-19 lockdown even though electricity demand fell more at that time.

The sharp reduction in thermal power output this April was due to a combination of weak demand – down 4% year-on-year – combined with strong growth of clean energy.

Half of the reduction was due to lower electricity demand, one quarter was due to strong growth in wind and solar output, and one quarter due to good hydropower operating conditions. Power generation from wind and solar increased 15% and 25% year-on-year respectively, while hydropower output jumped 17%.

Wind, solar and nuclear combined will almost certainly overtake hydropower for total generation this year, which is remarkable given the size of China’s hydropower industry.

This development is also positive for the growth of China’s clean energy output overall, as these technologies have very large growth potential, whereas the potential for hydropower expansion has largely been exhausted, as seen in the limited increase projected in long-term energy scenarios for China.

Electricity demand will recover, hydro generation will fluctuate depending on rainfall, but wind and solar will go on growing.  If expansion of wind and solar is replacing an additional 3% a year of demand for electricity, overall trend emissions from electricity will decline.   

If the growth rate in wind and solar is sustained, assuming growth in electricity demand remains at ±3% p.a., this decline in emissions from electricity will start by 2025.  And even if electricity demand starts to accelerate because of China's rapid roll-out of electric cars, the expansion in renewables will indirectly be replacing oil consumption.  

This is very good news.  China is responsible for 25% of global CO2 emissions.  Her emissions need to stabilise and then fall.