With growing fossil fuel prices and energy security concerns, the global power crisis is growing severely and encouraging the world to fasten the development towards renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, and hydro. According to a report by International Energy Agency (IEA), solar energy is ready to record the largest annual growth in new renewable energy capacity ever. Global renewable capacity additions are set to soar by 107 gigawatts (GW), the largest absolute increase ever, to more than 440 GW in 2023.
The report also suggested that the contribution of solar energy was the highest in this gigantic growth of the renewable energy industry. To support the argument the data presented by IEA suggested that Solar PV’s power capacity is expected to surpass that of coal by 2027, becoming the largest power source in the world.
It is important to understand the reason behind the growth of renewable energy supply and how is it changing the future of the world. Solar energy can remove all the hurdles of power production in the world if produced efficiently. To understand this better, let’s see what the current state of solar renewables are and what is the future behold for the same.
Current State of Solar Renewable Energy Globally
World power generation is leaning towards renewable energy resources due to the rising cost of fossil fuels and the growing need for energy. The top three countries to produce renewable energy are China, USA, and India.
The common trends that are happening around solar renewable energy globally are digitization, energy-efficient integrations, and solutions that overcome the intermittency in renewable energy production. Many organizations and government are investing in the solar energy industry around the world such as-
• Masdar and Iberdrola Collaborate to Accelerate Global Renewable Energy Expansion in Anticipation of COP28.
• On November 30, 2022, ACWA Power signed an agreement with Water and Electricity Holding Company (Badeel) to build the world’s largest single-site solar-power plant in Al Shuaibah, Mecca province with a production capacity of 2,060 MW.
• At the beginning of 2023, Amazon received permission from the Indian government to in the country. The company has signed 720 MW worth of energy purchasing agreements in India from different renewable sources, like solar.
World’s Future with Solar Renewable Energy
IEA says renewables will account for 35% of global power generation by 2025 and countries are looking forward to complete carbon emission in energy production by 2050. Organizations like TotalEnergies are looking forward to increasing their renewable energy production.
• According to the Net Zero scenario from IEA, the share of renewable energies in the global energy mix is expected to increase sharply, from 16% in 2020 to 29.3% in 2030 and 63.5% in 2050.
• TotalEnergies aims to install 100 GW of renewable power generation capacity by 2030.
• A new venture backed by Indian solar panel maker Vikram Solar Ltd will invest $1.5 billion in the U.S. solar energy supply chain to build a solar production unit in Colorado in 2024.
World’s future lies with the development of more renewable energy sources because the consumption of electricity is always going to increase and shortage of non-renewable energy resources will affect the world on a larger scale. To resolve the issue and to support the environment, governments all around the world and many major energy companies such as General Motors, NextEra, and many more are also moving towards installing renewable energy production units globally.
Leading to this, there is still so much to be researched since technology like AI, and Machine Learning can increase the production capacity from renewable resources like solar, that’s where the need for custom research comes across to help develop new techniques to increase productivity and reduce the cost of production.