The war in Ukraine will cause a global doubling of green energy capacity – IEA

The war in Ukraine will cause a global doubling of green energy capacity – IEA shutterstock
Katerina Belousova

Renewable energy sources will account for more than 90% of global electricity growth

The International Energy Agency's (IEA) new annual report on the outlook for renewable energy has found that renewable energy capacity growth will double over the next five years due to energy security concerns following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Global green generation capacity is expected to grow by 2,400 GW – equal to China's entire electricity capacity today – to 5,640 GW by 2027, reports Reuters.

The article emphasized that high prices for gas and electricity due to the global energy crisis of 2022 made green energy more attractive. And the forecasted increase in 2021 exceeds the volume of growth by 30%.

The authors noted that the growth of RES capacity is also driven by policy and market reforms in the US, China and India to accelerate the deployment of renewable energy sources.

"Renewables have already grown rapidly, but the global energy crisis has pushed them into an extraordinary new phase of even faster growth as countries seek to reap the benefits of energy security," said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol.

He also added that the world needs to add as much renewable energy in the next 5 years as it did in the previous 20 years.

The report highlighted that renewables will account for more than 90% of global electricity growth over the next five years, overtaking coal to become the world's largest source of electricity by early 2025.

The authors noted that global solar PV capacity is set to nearly triple by 2027, becoming the world's largest source of electricity, while wind capacity will nearly double. In addition, demand for biofuels is expected to grow by 22% by 2027.

Earlier, EcoPolitic wrote, that the president of the Professional Association of Environmentalists of Ukraine (PAEU) Lyudmila Tsyganok said that the war in Ukraine, which has a significant impact on the global world, will provoke a massive and powerful transition to green energy.

As EcoPolitic previously reported, Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Denmark have committed increase wind energy production sevenfold by 2030 – from less than 3 GW to 20 GW.

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