From 2019 to 2023, clean energy technologies such as solar PV, wind power, nuclear power, electric cars and heat pumps increased by almost 50% worldwide, reaching $1.8 trillion in investment in 2023 and growing at around 10% per year, says the International Energy Agency (IEA).
It said annual solar PV and wind additions increased by 85% and 60%, respectively, and capacity additions for these two technologies reached nearly 540 GW. China accounts for the majority of growth in both solar and wind energy. However, clean energy deployment in 2023 remained overly concentrated in advanced economies and China, while the rest of the world continued to lag significantly behind. In 2023, China and advanced economies accounted for 90% of wind and solar capacity additions and more than 95% of global electric vehicle sales.
The deployment of five key clean energy technologies – solar PV, wind, nuclear, electric cars and heat pumps – from 2019 to 2023 avoided fossil fuel energy demand, which in 2023 will account for 5% of total global fossil fuel demand across all sectors corresponds to fuels.
The saved coal requirement is around 580 million tonnes of coal equivalent (Mt TCE) per year. This is 30% more than the actual increase in global annual coal demand of around 440 million tce from 2019 to 2023.
The largest driver of avoided coal demand has been the use of solar PV and wind power in power sectors around the world, with the two technologies saving approximately 320 and 235 Mtce of annual coal demand, respectively. This is equivalent to the annual coal requirement for electricity generation in India and Indonesia combined.
According to the IEA, the saved demand for natural gas on an energy equivalent basis is approximately 180 billion cubic meters per year. That is almost double the actual increase in global annual natural gas demand of around 100 billion cubic meters from 2019 to 2023. The use of wind and solar PV supplies most of this avoided natural gas demand (155 billion cubic meters), albeit with heat pumps The use also saves around 15 billion cubic meters of annual demand.
According to the IEA, nuclear capacity expansion amounted to 5.5 GW and construction of five new nuclear reactors began in 2023. At the beginning of 2024, 58 reactors were under construction worldwide – a total capacity of over 60 GW.
