These are the main findings of the latest edition of the International Energy Agency's (IEA) report, Renewable Energy 2024. The report predicts a "huge" increase in new renewables capacity by 2030, with 5,500GW added over the rest of the decade - more than three times the capacity installed between 2017 and 2023 and roughly equal to the current installed power capacity of China, the United States, the European Union and India combined.

Photovoltaic power generation will drive much of this change, the report said. Under the "baseline scenario," which assumes continuation of current renewable energy installation policies, the IEA expects the installed capacity of large ground-based power stations and the distributed PV sector to almost quadruple between 2023 and 2030.

In this scenario, large terrestrial PV will grow from 917.1GW to 3,467.1GW, and distributed PV will grow from 694.4GW to 2,353.5GW.

The chart above compares the projected growth of solar PV with the growth of several other renewable energy technologies. In this context, the growth in solar installations is expected to be particularly significant. Solar power grew nearly fourfold.

Hydropower deployment, on the other hand, is relatively stable, with 1140.8GW installed in 2023 and 1576.2GW installed in 2030. The installed capacity of onshore wind power will nearly double, increasing from 941.3GW to 1765.2GW by the end of the century.

The chart also shows that the world is not on track to meet the IEA's "accelerated case" scenario, which assumes that governments will implement policies to encourage the deployment of renewable energy faster than in the "main case" scenario. The scenario would see more than 10,000GW of renewable capacity in operation by 2030, closer to the global target of tripling renewable capacity agreed at COP28, compared to around 9,000GW in the "main case" scenario.

However, this tripling target requires around 11,000GW of renewable capacity to be committed by 2030, suggesting that neither the IEA's "prime" nor "accelerated" scenarios will achieve this goal. Given the predicted rapid growth of the solar industry in both scenarios, continued expansion of solar installations could be critical if the world is to meet the goals of COP28.trina solar panels