
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
Solar Power Capacity Factor Anomalies
Hydropower Proxy Indicator Anomalies
Energy Demand Proxy Indicator Anomalies
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.