This guide is part of a series prepared by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) in the field of quality infrastructure (QI) for small-scale renew¬able energy technologies. Quality Infrastructure for Renewable Energy Technologies: Solar Water Heaters analyses the challenges and offers recommendations for developing QI for solar water heaters (SWHs), as well as highlighting the experiences of several countries in developing and implementing QI for SWHs. The SWH guide concludes by applying guidelines for incrementally developing QI to the particular case of SWH markets.

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.

This report is the first-ever projection of PV panel waste volumes to 2050. It highlights that recycling or repurposing solar PV panels at the end of their roughly 30-year lifetime can unlock an estimated stock of 78 million tonnes of raw materials and other valuable components globally by 2050.

Solar and wind power continue expanding, constituting almost 40% of newly installed power capacity worldwide in 2014.

This report aims to expand policy makers’ understanding of the steps needed to develop a local market for solar water heaters, and the existing capabilities that can be leveraged to do so. The report also highlights opportunities to create local value by setting up a domestic industry around solar water heaters.

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. 

This brief analyses Concentrating Solar Power and the potentials of the thermal storage system for the disruption of renewable energy.

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) .

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.

This series of technology briefs provides technical background information, analyses market potential and barriers and provides insights for policy makers on key types of renewable energy technology. The briefs, produced by IRENA in collaboration with the International Energy Agency’s Energy Technology Systems Analysis Programme (IEA-ETSAP), cover different technologies or processes:

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 technology brief provides technical background information, analyses market potential and barriers, and offers insights for policy makers on thermal energy storage.

The report provides insights on the country’s potential to adopt solar photovoltaic (PV) and wind power.

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.

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.

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.

The latest publication from IRENA and WTO draws on the development and implementation of a quality infrastructure for trade in renewable energy technologies.

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 outlines key off-grid power and biogas data over the decade 2008-2017 in trilingual tables. The sector continues growing rapidly worldwide.

Like an increasing number of countries around the world, the Philippines has adopted clear targets for the adoption solar, wind and bioenergy-based power systems, with project development already underway in some cases

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.