AIMING FOR 36% AND BEYOND

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The world can double its share of renewable energy in total final energy consumption by 2030. In addition to business as usual developments, this requires the deployment of renewable energy technology options in both the power and end-use sectors as well as modern energy access and improving energy efficiency.

Based on the bottom-up analysis of 26 countries which account for three-quarters of the global total final en-ergy consumption (TFEC), REmap 2030 assesses the technology development needs between 2010 and 2030 to double the global renewable energy share.

Figure 1 shows the contribution of each technology development. Business as usual (or Reference Case), repre-sents the growth in renewable energy based on current policies of the 26 countries between today and 2030. However, this growth contributes only 20% towards the global doubling (from 9% to 14% modern RE in TFEC, a 5% increase).

With policy action, more renewable energy technologies can be deployed beyond business as usual, represent-ed by the REmap Options. The REmap Options can get us another 32% of the way towards a doubling of the renewable energy share (from 14% to 27% share in TFEC, a 13 percentage-point increase). More than half of the REmap Options are in the end-use sectors, and the remainder in the power sector. A combination of business as usual and the REmap Options would result in around 70% of the action needed to achieve the doubling.

To get the rest of the way there deployment of renewable energy technologies need to be complemented by modern energy access and improving energy efficiency. Modern energy access represents 12% of the increase (from 27% to 30% of TFEC, a 3 percent-age-point increase) and energy efficiency 16% (from 30% to 34%, a 4 percentage-point increase). Together these two can contrib-ute 30% to the doubling of the global re-newable energy share and ensure that the objective is met.

Therefore reaching a doubling of the re-newable energy share in the global energy mix requires a nexus approach. Action will be required to ensure the development of different technologies, not only renewables, but technologies also related to modern en-ergy access and energy efficiency.

36% RENEWABLE ENERGY SHARE IN THE GLOBAL ENERGY MIX IS POSSIBLE

Figure 1: Contribution to doubling the global renewable energy share in total final energy consumption: from 2010 to REmap 2030

Reference Case2010-2030

20%

REmap Options:end-use

32% REmap Options:

power 20%

Modern energy access

12%

Energy e�ciency16%

www.irena.org

AIMING FOR 36% AND BEYOND

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The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) is an intergovernmental organisat ion promoting the widespread and increased adoption and sus tainable use of al l forms of renewable energy wor ldwide, including bioenergy, geothermal energy, hydropower, ocean energy, wind energy and solar energy.

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Figure 2 illustrates the pathways for doubling the global renewable energy share and presents results for the REmap Options, the two other Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) objectives of energy access and efficiency, and RE+ Options. In 2010, 18% of global TFEC came from renewable sources. Half of this share (9%) was in the form of modern renewables (comprising of modern forms of bioenergy and hydropower with smaller contri-butions from wind, solar and geothermal energy). The other half (9%) comprises traditional uses of biomass, whose global use is hard to quantify.

Under business as usual, modern forms of renewable energy see increased growth, but because of a significant growth in TFEC, the renewable energy share increases only from 18% of TFEC in 2010 to 21% in 2030. IRENA’s analysis found that markets are already growing faster than governments anticipate and that much more can still be achieved.

With concerted policy action to ensure the uptake of the REmap Options (dark green bar in Figure 2), the renewable energy share could increase much further – to around 27% of TFEC. The REmap Options also entail a shift from traditional use of biomass to sustainable forms of modern biomass, and the result is a tripling of the share of modern renewable energy from 9% in 2010 to nearly 27% in REmap 2030.

The REmap Options do not assume that all traditional use of biomass will be phased out. Achieving the SE4ALL objective of modern energy access will require additional policy efforts (first blue bar). Closing that gap with the substitution of traditional use of biomass with modern forms of renewable energy, and ensuring electric-ity access from renewable sources, would push the share of renewables in TFEC to 30%. Next, the impact of SE4ALL’s energy efficiency objective on the renewable energy share in 2030 is shown (second blue bar). With greater energy efficiency, the rate of increase of energy consumption is reduced, and the same amount of re-newable energy covers a larger share of demand and therefore raises the share of renewables.

RE+ Options (last three bars) represent technologies and steps that can take the share of renewables even further. The REmap Options, in com-bination with SE4ALL’s other two aspirational objectives, are not the limit to renewa-bles development. RE+ Op-tions include modal shifts in transport, electrification, industry relocation, early re-tirements and technologies not yet ready for the market today (“breakthrough”), but also other actions that are hard to monetise.

For more details, please visit www.irena.org/remap.

Figure 2: The stepping stones towards a doubling of renewable energy

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Traditional Biomass