While South Africa’s latest draft electricity plan is signalling a pullback in renewables investments for the period to 2030 relative to the prevailing policy, the rest of the world is powering ahead, with the International Energy Agency (IEA) reporting that 50% more renewables capacity was installed globally in 2023 than in 2022 and with record-breaking growth forecast for the coming five years.

In its ‘Renewables 2023’ report, the IEA states that 507 GW of renewable-energy capacity was installed last year, increasing the installed base to about 3 600 GW, with solar photovoltaic (PV) accounting for three-quarters of worldwide additions.

The largest growth took place in China, which commissioned as much solar PV in 2023 as the entire world did in 2022, while China’s wind power additions rose by 66% year-on-year. In addition, the IEA now expects China to achieve its national 2030 target for wind and solar PV installations in 2024, six years ahead of schedule.

Renewable energy capacity in Europe, the US and Brazil also hit all-time highs, and solar PV and onshore wind deployment in these territories through to 2028 is expected to more than double when compared with the last five years.

About 64 GW of new renewable capacity is forecast for sub-Saharan Africa from 2023 to 2028, more than doubling the region’s current installed capacity. Much of this growth, however, hinges on South Africa, where the outlook could be affected by the lower ambition signalled in the country’s yet-to-be-approved Integrated Resource Plan of 2023 (IRP 2023), which is out for comment.

The IEA forecasts that global renewables capacity will grow to 7 300 GW over the five years to 2028, with nearly 3 700 GW expected to be installed during the period, or more than has been installed since the first commercial renewable energy power plant was built more than 10 years ago.

Solar PV and wind account for 95% of the expansion, with renewables overtaking coal to become the largest source of global electricity generation by early 2025. By 2028, potential renewable electricity generation is expected to reach around 14 400 TWh, an increase of almost 70% from 2022.

To meet the COP28 goal of tripling capacity by 2030, which would increase the installed base to 11 000 GW, would require governments to act on policy uncertainties and cumbersome administrative procedures, as well as to tackle insufficient grid investment and the current insufficient financing in emerging and developing economies.

“For me, the most important challenge for the international community is rapidly scaling up financing and deployment of renewables in most emerging and developing economies, many of which are being left behind in the new energy economy,” IEA executive director Fatih Birol says.

He notes, too, that onshore wind and solar PV are cheaper today than new fossil fuel plants almost everywhere and cheaper than existing fossil fuel plants in most countries.

The report notes that prices for solar PV modules in 2023 declined by almost 50% year-on-year, while these cost reductions are set to continue on the back of yearly global manufacturing capacity reaching 1 100 GW by the end of 2024, which significantly exceeds demand.

“By contrast, the wind industry (outside of China) is facing a more challenging environment due to a combination of ongoing supply chain disruption, higher costs and long permitting timelines, which require stronger policy attention,” the report states.

It also concludes that the world’s capacity to generate renewable electricity is expanding faster than at any time in the last three decades, offering a “real chance of achieving the goal of tripling global capacity by 2030”.

In South Africa, however, there is a risk of a slowdown in renewables investment, despite the country’s world-class solar and wind resources, which have made wind and solar PV the cheapest sources of new electricity.

Deployment has already been lumpy since the resumption of public procurement in 2020, notwithstanding recent private acceleration by businesses and households in a bid to mitigate the effects of loadshedding and steep tariff increases.

The pace of deployment could be further constrained, however, should the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy’s draft IRP 2023 be approved.

The plan, which was published for public consultation on January 4, makes far larger allocations for gas-to-power (GTP) installations than is the case with the prevailing IRP 2019 and significantly reduces the allocations for both solar PV and wind for the period to 2030 relative to the prevailing policy.

The increased allocation for GTP in the draft document arises principally from the hard wiring of two Ministerial determinations into one of five scenarios outlined for ‘Horizon 1’, which covers the period from 2024 to 2030, including a 3 000 MW GTP allocation for independent power producers and a 3 000 MW allocation for Eskom’s Richards Bay GTP project.

This assumption, together with assumed lower demand for the period to 2030, has had a knock-on effect for the other technologies, with the allocation for new wind reduced to 4 468 MW, compared with 17 742 MW in the current plan, and the allocation for new solar PV falling to 3 615 MW, from 8 288 MW.