The 2017 edition of the REN21 Renewables Global Status Report, launched in June 2017 to provide a comprehensive annual overview of the state of renewable energy, reveals that 2016 was another extraordinary year for renewable energy.
As of 2015, renewable energy provided 19.3% of global final energy consumption, of which 9.1% were traditional biomass and 10.2% modern renewables.
In the power sector, solar photovoltaics (47% of newly installed renewable power capacity in 2016) and wind (34% of newly installed renewable power capacity) were the most dynamic areas. Overall, by end of 2016, renewables covered 24.5% of global electricity demand.
2016 was the third year in a row where decoupling of economic growth and energy-related CO2 emissions occurred.
Despite good performance of renewables and significant advancement in the global renewable energy transition, further and faster progress is required. Some areas:
- Although achieved progress in adoption of renewable energy is highly remarkable, it is not fast enough to reach the Paris Agreement goals.
- Deployment of renewables for heating and cooling remains strongly underdeveloped.
- Community-based renewable energy initiatives, which hold potential to make a vital contribution to speed the energy transition, now face less favourable frameworks compared to some years ago in several countries, resulting in slower pace of growth. As a positive trend, community-based schemes diversify their market activities, for example to also include storage and demand-side management.
The full report is available on the REN21 website:
Renewables 2017 Global Status Report (GSR)