I’ve posted recently about the challenges, if not impending train wrecks, for LNG and SMRs.
As we come up towards a the first full year of the most fossil fuel-centric administration in history, nothing I’m seeing makes me think I’m wrong.
As President Donald Trump pressures world leaders to abandon the energy transition in favor of a U.S.-led fossil fuel resurgence, the status of India’s gas-fired power plants helps explain why his pitch isn’t getting much traction.
Half of that fleet in India is sitting idle. Although electricity demand is exploding, and the plants are designed to run for decades into the future, Indian officials have turned away from them. Their calculation: that renewable energy provides a cheaper and more reliable alternative.
“And you don’t have to depend on overseas nations for fuel,” said Sumant Sinha, CEO of ReNew, one of India’s largest renewable energy companies.
Last week, the International Energy Agency (IEA) nearly halved its forecast of renewable energy growth in the United States, citing the end of tax incentives and other recent policy shifts. Tens of billions of dollars of manufacturing projects to build solar panels, batteries, charging stations and other clean technologies have already been canceled, with hundreds of billions of dollars of additional announced investments imperiled.
But even as U.S. political forces are working against the energy transition, economics are propelling it forward globally. While Trump brands renewables as a “green energy scam,” other countries are pivoting to solar and wind because dramatic price reductions have made them the cheapest options.
As a result, by next year, renewables are expected to overtake coal as the largest global source of electricity, part of what the United Nations calls an irreversible “tipping point” for the adoption of clean energy. The scale of uptake stands as one of the few climate-related bright spots since countries struck the Paris agreement a decade ago with the goal of limiting a rise in global temperatures.
“No one can stop the energy transition — no one. No country, no person,” said Francesco La Camera, the director general of the International Renewable Energy Agency.
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But other countries, too, are finding that economic development no longer requires heavy reliance on fossil fuels. Brazil is now generating more power from solar than Germany. Pakistan, over six years, has imported solar panels at such volume that their capacity equals that of the national electricity grid. Countries across Africa, where hundreds of millions lack a grid connection, are lighting homes and businesses and medical clinics with Chinese-made solar panels at a record scale. Oil-rich Nigeria is even installing a solar mini-grid at its presidential villa — a way to work around persistent power outages.
Experts and analysts say America risks a loss of geopolitical clout and economic opportunity by opposing technologies that it once helped innovate.AI Icon
China, with a lock on solar panel and electric vehicle production, has already positioned itself as a kingmaker for any country seeking clean energy. Experts point to the surge in solar imports across the developing world as one sign that countries will favor China’s pitch over America’s.
The U.S. is heading toward a $152 billion trade deficit in clean energy manufacturing by 2035, according to IEA data. China, meanwhile, is on track to earn more from exporting clean energy technologies by that time than all of the oil revenue generated by the gulf states combined last year.
“Global renewable power capacity is expected to double between now and 2030, increasing by 4,600 gigawatts. This is roughly the equivalent of adding China, the European Union, and Japan’s power generation capacity combined to the global energy mix. Solar PV accounts for almost 80 percent of the global increase, followed by wind, hydropower, bioenergy, and geothermal.”
“In more than 80 percent of countries worldwide, renewable power capacity is set to grow faster between 2025 and 2030 than it did over the previous five year period. However, challenges including grid integration, supply chain vulnerabilities, and financing are also increasing.”
The outlook for renewables is more positive in India, Europe and most
emerging and developing economies compared with last year’s forecast.
India’s renewable expansion is driven by higher auction volumes, new support for rooftop solar projects, and faster hydropower permitting. The country is on track to meet its 2030 target and become the second-largest growth market for
renewables, with capacity set to rise by 2.5 times in five years. In the European
Union, the growth forecast has been revised upwards slightly as a result of higher-than expected utility-scale solar PV capacity installations, driven by strong corporate power purchase agreement (PPA) activity in Germany, Spain, Italy and Poland.
This offsets a weaker outlook for offshore wind. The Middle East and
North Africa forecast has been revised up by 25%, the biggest regional upgrade,
due to rapid solar PV growth in Saudi Arabia. In Southeast Asia, solar PV and
wind deployment is accelerating, with more ambitious targets and new auctions.
DNV Energy Transition Outlook:
1. Policy reversals in the US will have only a marginal impact on the global energy transition
— This year, we project an energy transition that is marginally slower than the transition we forecast last year, both in terms of emissions and fossil’s share of primary energy.
— In the US, fossil fuel promotion and the reversal of clean energy support policies markedly slow that nation’s transition. Emission reductions are delayed by about five years (Highlight 1) and through to 2050 annual CO2 emissions are reset 500 to 1000 Mt higher than we predicted one year ago.
— China continues to set renewables buildout records with 390 GW of solar PV (56% share of new global capacity) and 86 GW of wind (60% share) expected to be installed this year. Chinese cleantech exports continue to propel the transition in the rest of the world.
— Europe is seeking to balance climate action with competitiveness. Harder-to-decarbonize sectors are progressing slowly. While Europe’s renewable energy buildout remains relatively strong, it falls short of the EU’s 2030 renewable energy targets.
— In the rest of the world, most countries are embracing competitive Chinese technologies, with year-on-year growth in installations at around 25%. Fossil energy use is also rising, but not as quickly. The primary energy fossil fuel share only shrinks from 79% to 75% over the next 10 years.
— This year, DNV forecasts the energy transition to 2060 for the first time. We project the global transition will continue through the 2050s, with acceleration at that time in nuclear and negative emission technologies.