Wind and solar power provided 12% of global electricity generation in 2022, hitting a record high, but are still overshadowed by coal, which remains the world’s largest source of electricity, according to a report by think tank Ember Energy.
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Taken together, “all clean power sources (renewable and nuclear, ed.) accounted for 39% of global electricity generation, a new record,” the remainder being covered by fossil fuels (gas, oil, coal), the report’s authors point out.
For its fourth annual Global Electricity Review, Ember drew on open electricity sector data from 78 countries, which account for 93% of the world’s electricity needs.
In 2022, wind and solar power have done well, reaching “a record 12% of the world’s electricity,” according to this report. In 2015 it was 5%.
More than 60 countries now get more than 10% of their electricity from it. The European Union is the pioneer with 22% electricity from renewable sources and 24% growth in solar compared to the previous year.
This breakthrough made it possible to limit the use of coal, which nevertheless increased by 1.1% as demand for electricity continued to rise.
“Despite these advances, coal remained the world’s largest source of electricity, producing 36% of the world’s electricity in 2022,” the report said.
The continued use of gas and coal to meet electricity needs resulted in “emissions (of greenhouse gases) increasing to a new record level” by 12 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalents in 2022 (+1.3%).
The report’s experts nonetheless believe that the year 2022 could be the year of the “peak of emissions associated with the power sector and the final year of fossil fuel growth” in the sector.
For 2023, they expect “a small decline in fossil generation (-0.3%), with larger declines in subsequent years as wind and solar power deployments accelerate.”
“In this decade, which is crucial for the climate, it is the beginning of the end of the fossil age,” estimates the analyst and co-author of the report, Małgorzata Wiatros-Motyka, quoted in the press release.