EVERY year, energy super major BP Plc. performs a much-needed service for economists, analysts and long-term planners everywhere with its annual. Published since the 1960s, it’s a trove of data on energy production and consumption, power generation, trade flows and other aspects of today’s energy system.
That is because renewable power has grown from 0.8 percent of the world’s electricity mix to 13 percent. Renewables passed the 10-percent mark in 2019 and have added 0.8 percent of market share—the same amount that they accounted for globally in 1985!—on average annually since 2010.Last year I noted that although renewable power generation does not exactly compete with nuclear, renewables were winning. In 2020, all renewable power generation surpassed all nuclear generation.
Over the next 20 years, Japan’s LNG imports peaked, driven by the closure of many of the country’s nuclear plants following the Great Tohoku Earthquake in 2011. Europe’s import volume looked poised to match Japan’s a decade ago, before falling back and then rising again to exceed Japan’s in 2019. Korea’s imports more than doubled, despite the occasional year of modest decline.
Fast forward to 2016 and China has surpassed the US and reached close to 60 percent of Europe’s total renewable generation. Then, in 2021, China rockets past Europe, adding almost 290 terawatt-hours of total renewable electricity generation in one year. Last year, Japan and India generated a combined 302 terawatt-hours.
Source: Energy Industry News (energyindustrynews.net)