World now adding enough renewable energy each year to power all of Southeast Asia

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Renewable energy will dominate the electricity capacity added worldwide in the next few years, signaling a “new normal” in which wind and solar are king, the International Energy Agency says.

Countries added 280 gigawatts of renewable energy in 2020, the largest year-on-year increase since 1999, the IEA said in a report released Tuesday. That amount of electricity is equal to the entire installed power capacity of the group of 10 Southeast Asian nations known as ASEAN, which includes the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Singapore.

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2020 was not an outlier year, however. The IEA expects 2021 and 2022 to see just as massive amounts of renewable energy installations — 270 GW this year and 280 GW next year. In total, renewable energy, predominantly solar and wind, will account for 90% of new power capacity expansion worldwide, the IEA added.

The IEA’s forecast signals that the world is turning a corner on renewable power as governments and corporations alike demand more wind and solar energy to help them meet their aggressive, mid-century climate targets.

“A massive expansion of clean electricity is essential to giving the world a chance of achieving its net-zero goals,” said Fatih Birol, the IEA’s executive director. He encouraged governments to implement policies further incentivizing investment in solar and wind, as well as additional electricity grid infrastructure and other renewable energy technologies such as hydropower, bioenergy, and geothermal.

Nonetheless, the expansion of renewable power won’t yet translate into any dramatic decrease in greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, global emissions are expected to see their second-biggest increase on record in 2021 as economies rebound from the pandemic and global coal demand grows, the IEA said in a separate report last month.

The IEA also expects renewable energy installations in China, which was responsible for more than half of the global capacity growth in 2020, to decline slightly over the next two years. That decline is a result of the Chinese government’s decision to end subsidies for wind and solar energy at the end of 2020.

China’s emissions of greenhouse gases now exceed those of all developed countries combined, new research from the Rhodium Group found last week.

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In the United States and Europe, however, the IEA expects renewable energy growth to pick up, making up for the decline in China. In the next two years, Europe is poised to become the second-largest renewables market after China, set to increase its capacity additions by 11%, the report finds.

A short-term extension of wind energy tax credits included in year-end spending legislation will increase onshore wind capacity additions in the U.S. by 25% in 2021 and 2022, the IEA says.

The IEA added it will include an assessment of the Biden administration’s climate proposals — including infrastructure plans, requirements for 100% clean electricity by 2035, and the goal to cut emissions in half by 2030 — in its fall renewable energy report.

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