Science
Global Shift: Seven Countries Reach 100% Renewable Power, Marking A Turning Point In Energy Transition
Unless we make some drastic adjustments, we only have ‘two years left to save the globe’ from the looming threat of climate change, according to some unsettling news last week from Simon Stiell, the UN Climate Chief.
Switching to a renewable energy system is one of the fastest and most efficient strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and give humanity a fighting chance against global warming.
Seven nations worldwide now produce almost all of their electricity from renewable energy sources, which is encouraging.
This is based on recently collected data from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and the International Energy Agency (IEA).
More than 99.7% of the electricity produced in Albania, Bhutan, Nepal, Paraguay, Iceland, Ethiopia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo comes from geothermal, hydro, solar, or wind energy.
Additionally, it was discovered that 40 other nations—11 of which were in Europe—generated at least 50% of their electricity from renewable energy sources in 2021 and 2022.
“We don’t need miracle technologies,” stated Mark Jacobson, a professor at Stanford University who conducted the data analysis.
“We need to stop emissions by electrifying everything and providing the electricity with Wind, Water and Solar (WWS), which includes onshore wind, solar photovoltaics, concentrated solar power, geothermal electricity, small hydroelectricity, and large hydroelectricity.”
Professor Jacobson added that other nations, such as Germany, have shown that they are capable of producing all of their electricity from renewable sources for brief periods of time.
In 2022, 41.5% of the UK’s electricity would come from renewable sources, an increase of 10.5% from the previous year.
However, in Scotland, 113% of the nation’s total electricity consumption in 2022 came from renewable energy sources.
“These record-breaking figures are a major milestone on Scotland’s journey to net-zero, clearly demonstrating the enormous potential of our world-class renewable energy resources,” Claire Mack, chief executive of Scottish Renewables, said at the time of the study.
Researchers from University College London and the University of Exeter observed a significant drop in overall commercial expenditures.
Accordingly, they think that solar energy has reached an “irreversible tipping point,” which implies that by 2050, it will probably overtake all other energy sources worldwide.
“Due to technological trajectories set in motion by past policy, a global irreversible solar tipping point may have passed where solar energy gradually comes to dominate global electricity markets, without any further climate policies,” the researchers wrote in the study.
“Solar energy is the most widely available energy resource on Earth, and its economic attractiveness is improving fast in a cycle of increasing investments.”
Unquestionably, this is a start in the right direction towards crucial climate action, and it is hoped that other nations that depend on limited resources would follow suit.
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