More than a third of the world's electricity comes from renewables, target to triple
In achieving the goal of tripling global renewable energy capacity by the end of the decade - as agreed at Cop28 - water scarcity will have to be reckoned with
by Lab24
2' min read
2' min read
More than one third of all electricity in the world today is produced from renewable energy. At the beginning of the millennium, this same figure was 19%. Driving the growth over the past twenty-four years has been electricity production from wind and solar power. In 2000, these two sustainable sources together accounted for 31 Terawatt hours (TWh). 3934 TWh in 2023. That is, they have gone from representing 0.2% of the global energy mix to 13.4% today.
Breaking this number down, one can see that wind power continues to provide a larger share of global electricity, 7.8% in 2023 versus 5.5% for solar. However, in the last two years, the global growth of solar power generation (+574 TWh) has exceeded that of wind power (+455 TWh).
This rise is mainly attributable to China, where 51% of the world's additional solar power capacity will be installed by 2023. This figure rises to 60% for wind power. However, the European Union has also played a crucial role, contributing a quarter of the growth in wind power over the past year, and 12% of that in solar power.
In the graph above, it can be seen, however, that globally it is hydropower production that accounts for the largest share (4211 TWh) among renewables, despite this being the lowest value in the last five years. Drought and record temperatures in 2023 are the main factors responsible for this decline.
In achieving the goal of tripling global renewable energy capacity by the end of the decade - as agreed at last year's Cop28 in Dubai - we will therefore have to reckon with the possible increase in water scarcity.
