IEA: Renewables 2024 - Analysis and forecast to 2030 | 2024

IEA published a flagship report titled Renewable 2024 on the renewable energy sector with forecast to 2030. New in this edition is a deep dive into renewable fuels including solid biomass, biogases, liquid biofuels,renewable hydrogen and e-fuels.

The report starts by providing a global overview of renewable energy. The renewable energy growth is forecasted to outpace the current government goals for 2030 all over the world. China is at the forefront of these development, setting itself in the position of global leader on renewables. China is predicted to be home to every other megawatt of all renewable energy capacity installed globally by 2030. In addition, the European Union and the United States are both predicted to double the pace of renewable capacity growth between 2024 and 2030.

Along with China as a main driver for the forecasted increase in renewable energy, solar is set to be another main driver. Additional solar capacity between now and 2030 will account for 80% of the growth in renewable power globally by the end of this decade. The adoption of solar accelerates due to declining costs, shorter permitting timelines and widespread social acceptance. While solar and wind are the main sources of renewable energy, the role others renewable is expected decrease  due to lack of policy support.  

The report claims that tripling the global renewable capacity is within reach. However, policy improvements are needed. In this report, the IEA has developed an accelerate case where the global renewable capacity reaches almost 11 000 GW in2030, laying the path for meeting the tripling goal. In China, the case sees that grid integration challenges are being addressed and installation of solar PV is taking place at a faster pace. In emerging and developing economies, policy improvement would enable the realisation of large untapped renewable potential.

Increasing policy attention should be paid to grid infrastructure and integration of renewables. In their case, IEA has found that renewables will account for almost half of globa lelectricity generation. The increase in electricity generated from solar and wind leads to higher curtailment, which points to the need for increasing flexibility. However, investment in grid infrastructure is lagging and more projects are waiting to be connected. With the deployment of renewable energy infrastructure being the cheapest its ever been, renewable electricity is rapidly expanding and is driving the decarbonisation of industry,transport and building.

The pace of renewables energy growth in transport, industry and buildings is predicted to double to 2030. For transport, renewable electricity accounts for half of this growth followed by renewable fuels. For heat, renewables consumption expands more than 50%, driven by renewable electricity use for heat in non-energy intensive industries and buildings, followed by bioenergy. IEA writes that renewable fuels are essential to the energy transitions but growth is lagging behind. The use of renewable fuels is set to grown by 20% by 2030. Bioenergy use is expanding most in industry followed by transport then building. Biofuels for the road sector remains the most dominant while their adoption in the aviation and maritime sector is accelerating. New policies for aviation and maritime biofuels spur over 30% of new biofuels demand in the transport sector overall. Biofuels in the aviation sector are forecast to climb to near 2% of total aviation supply by 2030 and in the maritime sector, biofuels climb to 0.5%of international shipping demand.In addition, biogas demand increases by 30% led by the United States and the European Union and renewable hydrogen and e-fuels also expand, but quantities remain small in the transport sector,

The deployment of renewable fuels relies on dedicated policy support which aligns with the IEA’s scenario to achieve net zero energy sector emissions by 2050. Renewable fuel adoption must nearly double to be on track with the pathway. Additional efforts and policies are needed to close the cost gap with fossil fuels and achieve faster deployment by fostering innovation, strengthening supply chains through government policies, implementing sustainability requirements and phasing out fossil fuel subsidies.  

The report delves further into topics such as costs, feedstocks and detailed analysis of each renewable fuel type.

Read the full report by downloading it here.

‍