Droughts that affected many parts of the world caused increased coal use for power generation to meet the shortfall in hydropower generation, which dropped to a five-year low in 2023.
Were it not for droughts that affected countries such as China, Vietnam, Mexico and India, the renewable energy capacity added over the past year would have been sufficient to enable a 1.1% fall in generation powered by fossil fuels, a report reads.
The Global Electricity Review published by global energy think-tank Ember on Wednesday says rapid growth in solar and wind has brought the world to a crucial turning point — likely this year — at which fossil fuel generation will start to decline at a global level.
“The renewables future has arrived,” said Dave Jones, Ember’s director of global insights. “Solar, in particular, is accelerating faster than anyone thought possible.”
Growth in solar and wind pushed the world past 30% renewable electricity for the first time in 2023, according to the report.
The shortfall in hydropower led to a 1% increase in global power sector emissions in 2023. But power sector emissions are expected to start declining in 2024, with a likely drop of about 2%.
“The decline of power sector emissions is now inevitable. [Last year] was likely the pivot point — peak emissions in the power sector, a major turning point in the history of energy. But the pace of [falling] emissions depends on how fast the renewables revolution continues,” Jones said.
The Ember report did not provide emissions figures for SA, but according to the most recent National Greenhouse Gas Inventory report published by the department of forestry, fisheries & the environment in 2023, SA experienced a 0.8% decrease in greenhouse gas emissions between 2000 and 2020 to 442Mt.
As part of its global climate commitments, SA aims to reduce emissions to 350Mt-420Mt by 2030.
Solar was the main supplier of electricity growth, surpassing wind to become the largest source of new electricity for the second consecutive year, the Embers report reads. Total solar generation capacity increased 23% in 2023, wind generation 10% and fossil fuel generation 0.8%.
China was the main contributor in 2023, accounting for 51% of the additional global solar generation and 60% of new global wind generation. The country was still in the first place, by a large margin, for total energy generated from coal.
Solar is playing a more prominent role in the energy mix across all regions. SA is lagging behind countries in Latin America and Europe, where the solar share in some countries rose to about 20% of the total energy mix.
Business Day previously reported that SA’s installed rooftop solar capacity nearly doubled last year to more than 5,500MW and the cumulative renewable generation capacity registered with the regulator rose from less than 1GW in 2022 to almost 7GW by end-2023.
SA was among just 13 countries globally to generate more than half its electricity from burning coal. At 81%, SA had the third-highest share of coal in its energy mix. SA was also among the top 10 countries for the total amount of energy generation from coal.
A report released in December by the International Energy Agency says that while the poor performance of Eskom’s coal-fired power stations in 2022 and 2023 weighed on coal demand and production over that period, a U-turn in this trend, as Eskom’s performance lifts, is likely to cause coal demand in Africa (which is dominated by SA) to increase about 3% by 2026.
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