These barriers include a ‘lack of attention’ to all potential energy carriers, failure to diversify renewable energy technologies beyond wind and solar power, deficiencies in policies, bottlenecks in permitting and grid connections, unequal investment levels in different regions, and continued large investments in fossil fuels.

According to the Renewables 2023 Global Status Report, the global energy supply is split mostly among heat (49%) and fuel (29%), with electricity having the lowest share (22%) of all the energy carriers. In 2022, the share of renewables in the power sector reached 30%, mainly because the sector has received long-term policy attention that enabled market and technology development, and drove down costs. Across all sectors, renewables cover only 12.7% of the total energy system, a relatively low share in the larger scheme of things.

‘The record growth of renewables in the electricity sector is positive news. However, we need to more than double this growth and to achieve deep electrification of the heat and transport sectors. We also need to invest heavily in grid infrastructure to address climate change and to provide access to over 700 million people living without electricity, mainly in Africa and Asia,’ says Rana Adib, Executive Director, REN21.

Meanwhile, the other energy carriers – fuels and heat, which provide most of the world’s energy – have only ‘dismal’ renewable energy shares of 3.6% and 9.2% respectively, according to the report. This indicates that efforts are narrowly focused on transitioning the power supply. ‘It took time, investment and policy attention to expand to 30% renewable power. We now need to award heat and fuels similar policy attention to achieve the critical shift we need,’ Adib notes.

The report asks for efforts in renewable electricity to be accelerated as well. Despite the strong focus on the power sector, the ongoing failure to build and extend electrical grids and to speed permitting processes are creating bottlenecks that are slowing the shift to a renewable-based power system. More than 1 TW of renewable energy projects are still waiting to be constructed and connected to the grid globally due to delays in permitting and lack of investment in grid infrastructure.

‘Even in the power sector, we are still not taking a systemic approach that builds renewable energy as a healthy economic sector and industry by investing in manufacturing capacities and skilling people. We focus on a few technologies like solar PV and wind and their generation capacity, neglecting distribution and connection to grids,’ says Adib.

The limited approach to the carriers has also been mirrored in the technologies and geographies. Solar and wind power currently dominate the annual additions of renewable power – together contributing 92% – with only 8% coming from other renewables. ‘If we don’t quickly evolve these alongside solar PV and wind, we will still need to depend on coal, oil and gas, and nuclear for our energy supply well into the future,’ cautions Adib.

Geographically, China led the world in renewable energy investments in 2022, with 55% of the global total energy, followed by Europe with 11% and the US with 10%. Africa and the Middle East received the lowest share of renewable investments by region, at only 1.6%. Most of the worldwide deployment in renewables was in China, which accounted for 44% of all solar capacity additions and 38% of all wind capacity additions, pointing to the high geographic concentration of renewable energy additions, the report notes.

The report also details how financial flows are still not shifting fast enough towards renewables and away from fossil fuels. Of the $640bn in global power investments in 2022, 26% still went to fossil fuels and nuclear power, even though renewable electricity is the least-cost option. ‘We will continue to lock in more emissions in the atmosphere by investing in fossil fuel technologies that will soon become obsolete’, the report concludes.