Despite the headwinds of economic uncertainty, inflation and rising interest rates of the past year, global renewable capacity has continued to grow. There were almost 295 gigawatts of capacity added last year, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency, to reach a total global capacity of 3.4 terawatts.

As part of its engagement in Latin America IRENA undertook the Renewables Readiness Assessment (RRA) Panama. A high-level event took place in Panama City for the launch of the report, which included government officials from various institutions, and representatives from the private sector, industry and academia.

IRENA co-organised two events at European Utility Week 2018, covering 'Managing A High Renewable System' and 'Electric Vehicles and Renewable Energy Powering the Transport Sector'.

An action-focused gathering of around 250 leading companies, innovators and policy makers from across IRENA’s diverse global membership, convened to explore how innovations in enabling technologies, business models, system operations and sector coupling can accelerate the renewable power transition.

IRENA, in close collaboration with the League of Arab States (LAS) and Regional Center for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (RCREEE) will be holding a five-day training on “Addressing Variability of Renewable Energy Sources in Long-term Energy Planning”.

This workshop presented and discussed issues with Long-term Energy Scenarios (LTES) for a clean energy transition, with a segment focused on drafting recommendations for the CEM ministerial meeting in May 2019.

IRENA’s Innovation landscape report maps and categorises many examples of innovations and innovative solutions in development by pioneering companies and backed by far-sighted governments around the world. The report and its accompanying detailed online resources provides decision makers with a clear, easily navigable but comprehensive guide to the diversity of innovations in use, or in development, in countries across the globe.

This workshop was part of the experience-sharing programme on innovative solutions for very high shares of renewable power by mid-century, supported by the government of Sweden and in collaboration with the government of Uruguay.

To inform policy making, IRENA provides state-of-the-art analysis of enabling policy frameworks and finance mechanisms, spanning the entire renewable energy development cycle. The analysis formed the basis for the discussions at the IRENA Policy Day

ICAO, the International Civil Aviation Organisation, has a target to cut carbon emissions in half by 2050.   While efficiency improvements like more fuel-efficient aircraft and better air traffic logistics can bring about half of the emissions reductions required, the other half will have to come through renewable jet fuel.  So if we hope to decarbonise the transport sector, we will need to have large amounts of biojet.