LONDON: The world is likely to use fewer fossil fuels to produce electricity in 2023 in a “turning point” for planet-friendly energy.
The fourth edition of Ember’s Global Electricity Review indicated that significant progress was now being made in decreasing the role of fossil fuels in power production, the BBC said.
It will be the first-ever annual drop in coal, oil and gas used to generate electricity outside of a world recession or pandemic. As a result, fewer warming gases would be released during energy production.
The authors attribute the expected change to the boom in renewable energy led primarily by China. Solar and wind now produce 12 percent of world electricity, with enough wind turbines added in 2022 to power almost all of the United Kingdom.
Making electricity with fossils is the biggest contributor to world warming, responsible for over a third of energy-related carbon emissions in 2021. So phasing out coal, gas and oil in this sector is critical in helping the globe avoid threatening levels of climate change.
This latest study analyses data from countries representing 93% of world electricity demand.
The study said that the main developments were the continuing rise of wind and solar as economically viable sources of electricity. Around the world, solar grew by 24 per cent the previous year, enough to meet the yearly demands of a country as big as South Africa.
Combined with hydropower and nuclear, clean sources produced 39 percent of world electricity in 2022. The report finds the electricity produced the previous year was the cleanest ever made. But despite that, carbon emissions from the sector continued to increase as coal use edged up.
According to the report’s authors, the overall electricity demand rose, and not all was met from clean sources. There were also problems with nuclear and hydroelectricity in 2022, with several French reactors offline and Europe’s rivers too low in several places for hydro generation.
The report said that in 2023, the growth of wind and solar would be greater than the increase in demand, which would start to turn the tide on warming gases.
Malgorzata Wiatros-Motyka, the report’s lead author, said that “When you stop adding fossil fuels to generate your electricity, you start seeing the fall in emissions,”
“This is extremely significant in the context of rising electrification, as we’ve more electric vehicles and heat pumps, so cleaning the power sector would also drive emissions down in other sectors.”
While a fall in fossil fuel emissions in electricity that year is expected to be minor, around 0.3 per cent, the authors believe the drop would continue and accelerate in subsequent years. Key to this, the study said, was a fall in the use of gas, which dipped slightly the previous year, although some countries like Brazil reduced their use by 46 percent in 2022.
Dave Jones, one of the report’s authors, said, “We’ve reached this next turning point of seeing a new era of falling fossil fuel power sector emissions. We know solar and wind are the answer, and we’ve just got to get on with the roadmap for building them as quickly as possible,”
One important player impacting the overall trend is China. Around 50 percent of the world’s addition of wind power came from China, and about 40 percent of the world’s new solar went from the country that’s also the world’s most important use of coal power.
