Renewable power reaches record 30% of global electricity
Experts have hailed a “critical turning point” as renewable power generated a record-breaking 30% of the world’s electricity last year, new data has found.
It raises hopes that the peaking of global greenhouse gas emissions is on the horizon.
But there are concerns many countries are being held up in their switch to clean power because they cannot access the cash needed to fund it.
Last year’s renewable power “milestone” was driven by yet another booming year for wind and especially solar.
China, Brazil and the Netherlands led the way in terms of fast roll-outs, thinktank Ember said in its annual Global Electricity Review.
China alone accounted for 51% of new solar generation and 60% of new wind, even as it continued to build vast amounts of new coal power too.
Christiana Figueres, former United Nations climate chief, called 2023 a “critical turning point”.
She said “outdated” fossil fuels now can’t compete with the “exponential innovations and declining cost curves in renewable energy and storage”.
“All of humanity and the planet upon which we depend will be better off for it,” she added.
In the last two decades, solar and wind have defied expectations and grown far faster than expected, surging from just 0.2% of global power generation in 2000 to 13.4% in 2023.
Dave Jones, Ember’s head of global insights, said the huge growth was due to “matured” policies and technologies and a plummet in costs.
The cost of solar power halved last year despite a surge in demand, thanks to an explosion in manufacturing capacity.
Meanwhile problems that had held up wind power – such as inflationary costs – began to resolve, unlocking more projects.
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China ramps up coal power despite pledge to control it
A ‘genuinely ambitious’ renewables target
At the COP28 climate summit in Dubai last year leaders pledged to triple renewable power capacity by 2030.
The “genuinely ambitious” target shows leaders are backing renewables, which are the “main tools that we have in the box today to deliver the big emissions reductions we need”, rather than riskier technology, such as that to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, Mr Jones said.
Ember suggests the global burning of fossil fuels in the power sector probably peaked in 2023 and will start to fall this year, along with the pollution and emissions they bring.
As the power sector accounts for the largest share of global emissions, that means global emissions could start to fall soon too.
That is good news for curbing climate change, although scientists have repeatedly warned that emissions are not falling fast enough to limit global warming to agreed safer levels.
Mr Jones said the pace of emissions falls “depends on how fast the renewables revolution continues”.
Joab Okanda, a senior adviser for Christian Aid, based in Kenya, said the roll-out would be “so much faster with the right investment” in African nations, which often face much higher borrowing costs than other countries.
Hanan Morsy, deputy executive secretary and chief economist at the UN’s Economic Commission for Africa, said the continent holds “big potential in renewable energy”.
“Yet a dismally small share of less than 2% of global renewable energy investments are made on the continent. The continent can’t develop further without access to energy.”
He called for financial reforms to bring in affordable and new types of funding.
Financing the clean transition in developing nations, which have typically contributed the least to climate change, will be a key issue at this year’s UN climate summit, COP29 in Azerbaijan.
Business
Vivergo: How US-UK trade deal could bring about collapse of huge renewable energy plant in Hull
The smell of yeast still hangs in the air at the Vivergo plant in Hull but the machines have fallen quiet.
More than 100 lorries usually pass through here each day, carrying 3,000 tonnes of wheat. It is milled, fermented and distilled. The final product is bioethanol, a renewable fuel that is then blended into E10 petrol.
This is a vast operation. It took several years to build, with considerable investment, but it is on the verge of closing down. Management and staff are holding out for a last-minute reprieve from the government but time is running out.
It’s been a turbulent journey. The plant was already being annihilated by US rivals, losing about £3m a month. Vivergo and Ensus, based in Teesside, blamed regulations that enable US companies to earn double subsidies.
They were pushing for regulatory change but then a killer blow: The US-UK trade deal, which allows 1.4 billion litres of American ethanol into the UK tariff-free (down from 19%).
“We’ve effectively given the whole of the UK market to the US producers,” said Ben Hackett, managing director at Vivergo.
“If we were to have the same support that the US industry has, if we could use genetically modified crops, we wouldn’t need that tariff. We would be able to compete. If we had the same energy costs. We wouldn’t need those tariffs.”
The government has the weekend to come up with a plan that could keep the business running. If it fails, Vivergo will begin issuing redundancy notices to its 160 staff.
Ben Hackett
It’s a devastating prospect for workers, many of them live in Hull and are nervous about alternative opportunities in the area.
Mike Walsh, a logistics manager who has been working at the plant for 14 years, said: “It’s not a great place to be at the moment. It’s a very well paid, very high-skilled role and they’ve (Vivergo) given everybody an opportunity in an area that doesn’t pay that well…. The jobs market isn’t as good as what people would like. So it does impact the local economy.”
He called on the government to “help us, save us, give this industry a future”.
His colleague Claire Wood, lead productions engineer, said: “I moved here after a career in oil and gas for 10 years, partly because I want to be part of the transition to renewable fuels. I can see so much potential here and it’s absolutely devastating to know that this place might be closed very, very shortly and that all that potential just goes away.”
Thousands more could be affected. Haulage companies may have to lay off truck drivers and farmers could also suffer a blow.
Vivergo makes bioethanol using wheat. That wheat is bought from farms from Yorkshire and Lincolnshire.
Claire Wood
The National Farmers Union has sounded the alarm, saying: “Biofuels are extremely important for the crops sector, and their domestic demand of up to two million tonnes can be very important to balance supply and demand and to produce up to one million tonnes of animal feed as a by-product.”
Another bioproduct is carbon dioxide. The gas can be captured and used to put the fizz in drinks or injected into packaging to preserve food.
If Vivergo and Ensus were to go, Britain would lose as much as 80% of its output of carbon dioxide. Supplies are already tight across Europe, meaning this decision could compound shortages across a range of sectors, from meat-packing to healthcare.
The industry is calling on the government to help. Vivergo says it needs temporary financial support but that the government must create a regulatory and commercial environment in which it can thrive.
It says rules that award double subsidies to companies that use waste product in their bioethanol must be changed. At present, these rules are being used by US companies that make ethanol from Uldr – a by-product of processing corn. They argue this is not a genuine waste product.
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Another option is to grow the market. Industry leaders are calling on ministers to increase the mandated renewable fuel content in petrol from 10% to 15% and for an expansion into aviation fuels. That would allow British companies to carve out a space.
The government has been locked in talks with the company since June.
It said: “We will continue to take proactive steps to address the long-standing challenges it faces and remain committed to a way forward that protects supply chains, jobs and livelihoods.”
However, the time for talking is almost over.
Mr Hackett said he had no idea how the government would respond but he was firm with his stance, saying: “In times of global uncertainty, losing that energy certainty and supply from the UK is a problem.
“I think what they’re missing out on is the future growth agenda. We’re the foundation on which the green industrial strategy can be built. We make bioethanol that today decarbonises transport. Tomorrow it will decarbonise marine. It will decarbonise aviation.”
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