WMO-IRENA 2022 Year in Review

Climate-driven Global Renewable Energy Potential Resources and Energy Demand

Highlights

Why do we need this report?

Climate variability and change modulate both energy demand and Renewable Energy (RE) supply, it is critical to assess the role climate has on RE potential generation and demand.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), jointly compiled this report to examine the status of renewable energy capacities in 2022, to provide a comprehensive and frequent update to energy stakeholders about the impact of weather and climate conditions on renewable energy production and demand.

Executive Summary

  • Renewable energy dominates new capacity additions, driven by solar and wind.
  • More decisive actions are needed to further accelerate the transition of energy systems to dramatically reduce greenhouse gases emissions of the energy sector by 2030 in line with 1.5 °C pathways.
  • Power generation from renewables, such as solar, wind, and hydropower, which are addressed in this report, is both driven and impacted by climatic factors.
  • The present report analyses the year 2022 compared to 30-year climatology data to offer insights into the effect of climate variability and change on selected technologies and energy demand.
  • This assessment is an initial step towards a more rigorous evaluation on the role of climate on RE supply and demand.

Key Messages

  • All assessed indicators show noticeable changes due to effects of climate variability and change, albeit differing by technology and country.
  • Improving our understanding of climate drivers and their interactions with renewable resources is vital for resilience and the efficiency of energy systems and their transition.
  • Mainstreaming climate variability, in addition to climate change, should be a priority for improved operation, management and planning of energy resources.
  • Adapting market structures is central to providing the necessary flexibility during the transitional phase from centralized to decentralized power systems.
  • Developing countries, especially in Africa where energy access remains a key priority, can adapt their systems to harness renewable potential with the benefit of knowledge on climate variability.
  • Comprehensive and systematic energy data collection and sharing are essential to improving knowledge and understanding of the impact of climate variability and change on energy supply and demand.

Background

Renewable energy dominates new capacity additions, driven by solar and wind.


According to IRENA  Renewable energy statistics 2023 , solar and wind energy continued to dominate renewable capacity expansion, jointly accounting for 90% of all net renewable additions in 2022.

Renewable generation capacity increased by 295 GW (+9.6%) in 2022. Solar energy continued to lead capacity expansion, with a massive increase of 192 GW (+22%), followed by wind energy with 75 GW (+9%). Renewable hydropower capacity increased by 21 GW (+2%) and bioenergy by 8 GW (+5%).

In 2022, renewable generating capacity expansion increased compared to 2021 and stayed well above the long-term trend.

The upward trend in these shares continues to show both the rapid and increasing growth in the use of renewables and the declining expansion of non-renewable capacity.

More decisive actions are needed to further accelerate the transition of energy systems to dramatically reduce greenhouse gases emissions of the energy sector by 2030 in line with 1.5-degree pathways.

Power generation from renewables, such as solar, wind, and hydro are both driven and impacted by climatic factors.

It is critical to understand the effect of the variability of relevant climate variables on renewable energy generation. Climate influences demand for electricity, and more generally energy consumption, especially related to heating and cooling.


Global perspective on renewable resources in 2022

The effect of climate variability and change is presented by evaluating the changes of four energy indicators, namely, wind power capacity factor (CF), Solar Photovoltaic (PV) CF, a hydropower proxy and an energy demand proxy (called energy degree days, EDD) for 2022, compared to the standard 30-year average, 1991-2020. This comparison allows us to identify specific inter-annual features that occurred in 2022, with respect to ‘average’ conditions.

Wind Power Capacity Factor Anomalies

Annual

  • Variations can be sizeable even when averaged annually – changes larger than 5-10% would be considered important in terms of power resource allocation and management;
  • Spatial patterns reveal clusters of countries with consistently lower resources and higher resources indicating possible (inter-)continental scale balancing of electricity subject to the presence of necessary power networks to exchange electricity between countries or continents. For instance, the higher production in North America could compensate the reduction in CF in Mexico.

Click on the side arrow to see monthly results.

May

Higher value negative variation is observed in a large part of Europe. Several countries such as Argentina, Paraguay and Australia, which on annual average had positive values, are now showing marked negative variations.

November

The changes in sign especially for neighboring countries points to potential power balancing, with, for instance, the ‘surplus’ in China potentially offsetting the deficit in South-East Asia.

Some of the observed changes can be linked to inter-annual climate drivers such as  El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO)  and the  Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD)  in equatorial areas.

Solar Power Capacity Factor Anomalies

Annual

Speculatively, the positive variations in Asian countries like China, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan potentially counterbalance the reduction in South Asia and South East Asia. However, only China, India, and Vietnam currently have a sizeable installed capacity, and no account for the actual location of transmission lines.

Click on the side arrow to see monthly results.

May

A large part of Asia displays a negative anomaly, most of Europe displays a positive anomaly. Intra-continental transmission of solar power would be challenging.

In May 2022, China had both wind power and solar PV power CFs with a negative anomaly, making compensation between wind and solar power difficult.

November

The November 2022 pattern is consistent with  La Niña  particularly in the tropical area.

La Niña manifests itself as increased cloud cover (and precipitation) over countries in the Western Pacific, Southern Africa, and North-Eastern South America, with corresponding reduced solar PV power CF.

Eastern Africa and Western South America show subsidence conditions associated with La Niña, corresponding with increased anomalies.

Hydropower Proxy Indicator Anomalies

Annual

The reductions of IC-W-TP (installed-capacity-weighted-total-precipitation), the hydropower proxy indicator, in Western Europe linked to strong drought happened over much of 2022.

Power balancing through electricity transmission is possible between Norway and the UK, considering Scandinavia's high installed capacity, positive variation, and interconnector linkage.

Click on the side arrow to see monthly results.

May

Consistent La Niña pattern is evident.

Shift from negative to positive variations for the USA, Spain, Kazakhstan, and China. Mexico, India, and Scandinavian countries show notable inversions from positive to negative.

November

The negative anomaly for Canada and Sweden, and the positive one for much of Western Europe are major notable changes.

Energy Demand Proxy Indicator Anomalies

Annual

The energy demand indicator is represented by Energy Degree Days (EDD), which is the sum of  Cooling Degree Days (CDD)  and  Heating Degree Days (HDD) .

2022 was the sixth warmest year on record. The pattern observed in EDD closely reflects the pattern in air temperature, which displays large areas of positive anomalies for 2022.

Click on the side arrow to see monthly results.

May

The positive EDD variations in far Eastern Europe, Russia, Argentina and Uruguay reflect higher heating requirements due to the extensive negative temperature anomalies.

Lower latitudes, such as Mexico, led to positive EDD variations due to increased cooling requirements (higher CDD).

November

The EDD variations are negative overall but reasons differ for different regions.

The negative signal in a large part of Southern Africa is due to l ower-than-normal temperatures , and hence lower cooling demand. Similar negative EDD variations in Europe, North Africa and Central-Eastern USA were instead driven by higher-than-normal temperatures, and linked to lower heating requirements.

Regional perspective on RE resources and demand in 2022

Assessments at regional level are done for three (portions of) continents: Africa, Asia and South America, each with a focus on a specific technology, namely solar PV power, wind power and hydropower, respectively. We choose 5 countries per continent that are close to each other and therefore potentially, or actually, connected via power transmission lines.

Africa - Solar PV Power

Five countries within the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) are selected: Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe, showing an almost entirely negative variation.

Southern Africa - Four Energy Indicators Monthly Anomalies

When demand is anomalously high, such as June 2022, SPV CF is reduced, and the indicators for wind power and hydropower show strong increases. In this case, no obvious power import or export would be necessary, even if there would be enough potential generation to provide some inter-country balance.

However in October 2022, balancing power amongst these countries would require careful planning, with a large portion of potential generations shows a negative anomaly.

Asia - Wind Power

Selected five nations are the major countries in South Asia – Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan – plus China. Except for Bangladesh, the wind power CF anomaly is moderately negative for the other four countries over 2022.

South East Asia - Four Energy Indicators Monthly Anomalies

The combination of high average demand anomaly, and generally low generation potential for the three RE resources makes a year like 2022 somewhat challenging from a demand-supply balance perspective for these five countries.

South America - Hydropower

The selected five nations are Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay. All of them show a negative average IC-W-TP.

South America - Four Energy Indicators Monthly Anomalies

Wind power and solar power CFs anomalies are generally positive throughout the year. The EDD is anomalously high in May and June for all five countries, which could be balanced by solar power.

In July 2022, when the EDD anomaly is overall negative (only Chile shows a small increase) and at the same time wind and solar power potential generation are generally positive, leading to a potential surplus in the generation that could be exported to neighboring countries.

Potential future climate risks on RE and demand

Wind Power

Natural variability due to the action of internal climate modes appears to dominate over global-warming-induced non-stationarity over most areas of the globe with large wind energy installations or potential.

However, there is evidence for increased wind energy resources by the end of the current century in Northern Europe and the US Southern Great Plains.

Solar PV power

Climate change may affect solar PV power output by enhancing weather variability and extremes, especially in terms of changes in temperature or clouds.

Under the Representative Concentration Pathway 4.5 (RCP4.5) scenario, climate change is expected to change average PV power outputs to only a minor to moderate extent.

Hydropower

Spatial patterns of changes in hydropower usable capacities strongly correspond with the projected impacts on streamflow.

However, most hydropower plants (61–74% for RCP2.6–8.5) are situated in regions where considerable declines in streamflow are projected, resulting in mean reductions in hydropower usable capacity.

Energy Demand

EDD are projected to overall increase at global scale, but to decrease over mid and high latitudes in Eurasia and in southwestern South America.

Progressive increase in CDD outbalances the decrease in HDD almost everywhere for most global warming levels (GWLs) and socio-economic scenarios (SSPs).

Importance of early warning systems

It is important to assess relevant climate drivers and their corresponding large-scale atmospheric patterns and understand their implications for renewable power generation and demand, to be able to provide appropriate advanced warnings.

Data sharing in energy is critical for accurately modeling power production or capacity factors.

It is important to support Early Warning for energy security, particularly for hydropower which is currently the most common RE source in many less developed countries.

    Policy for potential growth of RE in the context of climate variability

To enhance power system flexibility in response to anticipated or unexpected fluctuations, policymakers should:

  • Assist the adoption of weather forecast tools to deal with solar PV and wind variability.
  • Assist the power system development where different renewable energy sources could complement most effectively.
  • Foster flexibility resources (batteries, demand-side management, interconnections) to support commissioning and daily operations.  

© World Meteorological Organization, 2023

All the energy indicators are based on climate data from the ERA5 reanalysis. Methodology and full details are available in the report. Full report download  here .

Lead Authors

Alberto Troccoli (World Energy & Meteorology Council (WEMC)), Roberta Boscolo (WMO), Hamid Bastani (WMO), Imen Gherboudj (IRENA), Amjad Abdulla (IRENA), Ellipse Rath (IRENA) 

Other contributors

Emanuele Bianco (IRENA), Penny Boorman (WEMC), Chiara Cagnazzo (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF)), Beatriz Contreras (WEMC), Kamlesh Dookayka (IRENA), Laurent Dubus (Réseau de Transport d’Electricité (RTE)), Tobias Fuchs (Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD)), Christopher Hewitt (WMO), Kristian Horvath (Državni hidrometeorološki zavod (DHMZ)), Frank Kaspar (DWD), Juerg Luterbacher (WMO), Elizabeth Press (IRENA), Johan Stander (WMO), Nir Stav (WMO), Elena Manaenkova (WMO), Binu Parthan (IRENA) 

Graphic designers

Elena Restivo, Giovanni Aldrigo, Stefano Campostrini 

Storymap

Richaihu Wu (WMO)