Asia accounted for nearly two-thirds of the world’s new renewable capacity last year, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency’s (IRENA) Renewable Capacity Statistics 2018. The region was also the fastest-growing, achieving growth of 13.1 percent.
Asia contributed 106 GW, or 64 percent, of new capacity in 2017, and led overall renewable generation capacity with 919 GW, or 42 percent, of global capacity.
At the global level, renewable energy capacity grew 167 GW, or 8.3 percent, in 2017. This put the total global renewable generation capacity at 2,179 GW. New capacity expansion was driven by new installations of solar and wind, which achieved a combined total of 85 percent for all new capacity installed in 2017.
Key highlights from the report:
- China continued to lead global energy capacity expansion in solar, wind, and bioenergy. The nation contributed 53GW of solar energy, 15 GW of wind energy, and 2.1 GW of bioenergy last year.
- Indonesia was responsible for nearly half of geothermal energy capacity expansion in 2017, accounting for 306 MW of the global 644 MW.
- Asia continued to drive bioenergy capacity expansion, with increases of 2.1 GW in China, 510 MW in India, and 430MW in Thailand.
- New hydro capacity commissioned last year was the lowest recorded in the last decade.
For the complete dataset, please click here.
Credit: International Renewable Energy Agency