The report provides insights on various emerging offshore renewable energy technologies and their underlying potential. It also outlines a possible Action Plan for the G20 countries to drive offshore technologies closer to the commercialisation phase.
Power systems need to be increasingly flexible to accommodate rising solar and wind shares. This brief examines the uses of demand-side flexibility, outlines solutions to achieve these, and highlights examples in actual power systems.
Increasing economies of scale, more competitive supply chains and further technological improvements will continue reducing the costs of solar and wind power. The same factors will also boost the availability of these key renewable power sources at night and in varying weather conditions.
The Global Renewable Energy Atlas, which went live in January 2013 with components for solar and wind energy, is an open-access on-line resource intended to support well-informed energy policy and investment decisions.
Based on a new, unique dataset from a global survey, this IRENA report presents unprecedented insights on the cost of capital for onshore wind, offshore wind and solar photovoltaic (PV) projects.
This brief analyses Concentrating Solar Power and the potentials of the thermal storage system for the disruption of renewable energy.
Solar thermal systems (STS) are a mature technology that has been successfully deployed in several countries for residential applications since the early 1980s. This IRENA/IEA-ETSAP Technology Brief provides technical background, analyses the potential and the barriers for market growth, and offers insights for policy makers on this key renewable energy technology.
Solar photovoltaic (PV) power generation is poised to revolutionise the electrical system in countries around the world. From around 2% in 2016, the share of global electricity generated from solar PV to grow to as much as 13% by 2030, according to this report from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). The solar industry’s expansion is driven primarily by cost reductions, with the report anticipating further cost declines by up to 59% in ten years.
Solar and wind power continue expanding, constituting almost 40% of newly installed power capacity worldwide in 2014.
Offshore renewable energy – including offshore wind and solar power, as well as emerging ocean energy technologies – could support sustainable long-term development and drive a vibrant blue economy.
The municipal authorities for Zhangjiakou City, in co-operation with the China National Renewable Energy Centre (CNREC) and IRENA, have adopted an ambitious 30-year roadmap to phase out coal-fired power generation and scale up solar and wind power instead.
This working paper is part of a set of five reports on hydropower, wind, biomass, concentrating solar power and solar pholtovoltaics that address the current costs of these key renewable power technology options.
The Global Atlas for Renewable Energy (Global Atlas) is a free online resource-assessment tool intended to help policy makers and investors appreciate the extent of the renewable energy resources at their disposal in each country or region.
The report, prepared in collaboration with UN Refugee Agency, proposes renewable energy solutions to provide clean and reliable power to refugees and the humanitarian organisations.
With many economies facing slow growth prospects, policy makers increasingly see chances for greater income, improved trade balances, industrial development and job creation through renewable energy deployment. However, detailed evidence on these effects remains limited.
The report examines the specificities of mini-grids connected to solar, biomass, wind and small hydropower, or some combination of these with other energy sources, and discusses the key factors influencing investors in mini-grid projects.
Irrigation improves yields, reduces vulnerability to changing rainfall patterns, and enables multiple cropping practices. This can stimulate socio-economic development in the agriculture sector helping the fight against poverty.
The Global Atlas for Renewable Energy provides access to a vast range of solar and wind resource maps created using different methodologies, with different spatial coverage and resolutions. Several datasets may overlap a single territory, and users can choose among several data sources. Yet this very versatility can pose a dilemma for the end-user over the main strengths and weaknesses of the available datasets, and which data is the most suitable to use.
In two international workshops in Bonn (June 2010) and Madrid (November 2010) and in meetings during the first CEM in Washington (July 2010) and the second CEM in Abu Dhabi (April 2011) the Multilateral Working Group made substantial progress in the two initial fields of action: (I) the Development of a Global Solar and Wind Atlas; and (II) the Development of a Long-term Strategy on Joint Capacity Building.
This report examines ground-breaking innovations that can help to unlock future power supply for unserved areas and communities through the rapid roll-out of mini-grids based on solar, wind or other renewable sources.
This IRENA/IEA-ETSAP Technology Brief provides technical background, analyses the potential and barriers for market growth, and offers insights for policy makers on tSolar thermal systems (STS) .
This study presents options to fully unlock the world’s vast solar PV potential over the period until 2050. It builds on IRENA’s global roadmap to scale up renewables and meet climate goals.
IRENA's 10th Assembly booklet charts global advances over the past decade and calls for a new Decade of Action on renewables. Comparative graphs and data illuminate the road ahead.
Electricity storage will be crucial factor for scaling up solar and wind power. Yet electricity markets may not account for the system value of storage.
This publication presents statistics for the decade 2010-2019 in trilingual tables, covering off-grid power capacity, biogas production and numbers of people using off-grid power and biogas for cooking and lighting.