The impacts of the COVID-19 on renewable project development and investments were felt in China as well as in global market. Some of the impacts from the COVID-19 include blocked logistics, operation delay on the industrial chain, and low turnover efficiency where these impacts have led to price increases in the industrial chain and subsequently resulted in a decline in the growth rate for the downstream demand.
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Ireland is focused on achieving its climate and energy goals of becoming carbon neutral by mid-century with an interim target of 51 per cent emissions reduction by 2030 relative to 2018 emissions levels. It plans to achieve these targets through the Climate Action Plan 2023 (CAP2023) published in December 2022 under the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act 2021 to implement the economy-wide carbon budgets and sectoral emissions ceilings. Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK, also aims to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.
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Energy storage in the US is one of the fastest growing markets with a promising future. Over the last five years, the battery-based energy storage system (ESS) capacity has grown more than seven-fold and is pegged to have crossed 10.5 GW by March 2023. The market is dominated by two regional transmission organisations (RTOs), with the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) being the leader in battery storage capacity (over 5 GW) followed by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) (over 3 GW). By 2025, the country’s ESS capacity is forecasted to reach 30 GW.
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Securing materials critical to a variety of energy technologies (e.g., advanced nuclear technologies, energy storage, fuel cells and electrolyzers, solar photovoltaics, and wind) continues to be crucial. Through increased domestic production, recycling, development of alternatives, and friendshoring among U.S. allies and partners, there is a clear path to resilient supply chains for many of these materials and the technologies that currently rely on them.
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Solar power is entering a maturity phase in Spain: with around 8.4 GW of annual installed capacity in 2022, the country experienced its best year ever for solar PV deployment, becoming the largest European PV market in 2022. Since 2020, over 18 GW has been installed, leading to a 156% increase of the solar PV operating fleet in the last 3 years. However, there is no room for complacency: both policymakers and industry will have to actively protect the country’s GW-size industry.
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Sri Lanka has traditionally relied heavily on fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas, and coal to fulfil the majority of its energy and transportation needs. The transport sector in Sri Lanka, like in any other country, holds a significant position in the nation’s progress and advancement. Sri Lanka is taking initiatives in the field of EVs which are multi-faceted and forward-looking.
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Maldives is geographically blessed with abundance of renewable energy resources, including solar, wind, and ocean, as well as an ability to manufacture green hydrogen fuel. The country can also replace a portion of its diesel consumption with cheaper, more efficient and less polluting small-scale liquefied natural gas. As per IRENA’s Renewable Capacity Statistics 2023 report, total renewable energy capacity installed in Maldives as of 2022 was 37 MW.
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Saudi Arabia plans to transform its generation mix. It proposes to revamp its existing installed generation capacity of 83.4 GW as of December 2022, which is predominantly based on thermal sources such as natural gas, crude oil, diesel and heavy fuel oil, accounting for nearly 99.5 per cent of the total. According to the National Renewable Energy Program (NREP), the RES target for 2030 is 58.7 GW, of which 40 GW will be based on solar PV, 16 GW on wind and 2.7 GW on concentrated solar power.
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India’s clean energy transition plans will demand significant quantities of critical minerals. The country lacks reserves of nickel, cobalt, molybdenum, rare earth elements, neodymium and indium. Moreover, its requirement of copper and silver is more than its current reserves. Even if new reserves have been discovered or are discovered in the future, ramping up mining and production will be time-consuming and complex, leading to a potential demand-supply mismatch, varying in intensity from mineral to mineral.
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To ensure smooth integration of the expected new renewable energy generation into the transmission grid, in May 2023, CAISO released the 2022-23 Transmission Plan as part of its annual 10-year transmission planning process (TPP). The plan has more than doubled the number and value of projects than that in the previous plan. The new plan identifies 45 system expansion and upgrade projects worth $7.3 billion for the next decade.
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In 2022, China’s new installed PV capacity exceeded 87.4 GW, an increase of 59.3% year-on-year. New solar installations reached a new record high, becoming the largest and fastest growing power source in terms of new installations. Having achieved record capacity addition of 10.8 GW in 2015, the Japanese PV market has been on a downtrend following the reduced FIT support for solar PV. In 2022, Japan installed around 6.5 GW of new solar PV capacity, roughly the same capacity as in 2021.
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On June 24 2023, Mainland China extended the ‘red’ alert to most of Beijing and the provinces of Hebei, Shandong, Henan, and Inner Mongolia, reflecting the severity of the heatwaves that have been affecting the market. As the heatwaves are currently localised in the Northern regions, which depend less on hydropower than the Southern regions, the implications for the overall hydropower sector are expected to be limited. The hotter summers China is experiencing will push the market to strengthen support for other power types, with a focus on non-hydropower renewables expansion and dominating the market’s capacity additions.
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To fully reap the benefits of the upcoming capacity, optimise operating costs and increase regional power exchange, the state-owned electric company Saudi Electricity Company (SEC), through its wholly owned transmission subsidiary, National Grid S.A, continues to pursue opportunities to connect its grid with those of other countries in the region. Currently, it is working on cross-border interconnectors with Iraq, India, Jordan and Egypt.
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The largest steelmakers in Japan and Korea are aligned on reaching net zero by 2050, but they are plotting very different courses to get there. Japan’s Nippon Steel and JFE Steel, along with South Korea’s POSCO, are East Asian steelmaking leaders with similar production sizes and structures. They have comparable starting points and face the same resource constraints. But while Nippon and JFE still see a role for blast furnaces in 2050, POSCO is all in on hydrogen (H2).
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South Africa will be the largest renewables market in SSA over the next decade, as we forecast that South Africa will account for 68% of the total renewables capacity of the region in 2023. Up to 95% of Kenya’s increase in power capacity over the next ten years will come from non-hydropower renewable sources. Zambia is highlighted as a market to watch due to the expansion its renewables sector will experience in the next decade.
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Mainland China has been experiencing strong growth of its non-hydropower renewables sector as the government remains supportive of the sector’s role in meeting additional electricity demand from the market. In 2021 and 2022, amid disruptions stemming from the Covid-19 pandemic, China still experienced robust growth of its non-hydropower renewables sector with capacity growth rates of 19.0% and 19.2%, respectively.
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Peru’s non-hydro renewables segment will return to growth, supported by an improving policy environment following years of stagnation amid political instability. Low-carbon power technologies dominate the market’s project pipeline, with non-hydro renewables experiencing lower development risks than planned hydropower and gas-fired power projects. Non-hydro renewables’ share of the power mix will increase over the coming 10 years in line with government targets.
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Indonesia is the world’s fourth-most populous country and is set to become the world’s fourth-largest economy by mid-century. The key contributor to this growth has been the export of coal and natural gas, which has helped it maintain a positive trade balance. The country aims to increase the share of renewables in the generation mix to 23 per cent by 2025 and further to 32 per cent by 2030 and 69 per cent by 2060.
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Türkiye needs to focus on provinces with high solar potential to achieve its clean electricity targets. In 2021 and 2022, non-hydro renewable electricity generation overtook hydropower in Türkiye. By growing other renewable generation, this should become the rule instead of the exception to eliminate reliance on fossil fuels. Given the limited increases in hydro capacity in the National Plan and other projections, it is clear that non-hydro renewables will lead the way in Türkiye’s electricity transition.
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Critical minerals such as lithium, graphite, rare earth elements and cobalt are essential building blocks for a clean economy; they are used in wind turbines and solar panels, EV batteries and motors, renewable energy transmission and more. At present, the United States is reliant on imports for virtually all of these minerals. The U.S. must take action now to minimize these risks, secure its supply chains and drive responsible sourcing of critical minerals.
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