TRIPLING

RENEWABLE POWER
BY 2030
THE ROLE OF THE G7
IN TURNING TARGETS INTO ACTION
© IRENA 2024
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ISBN 978-92-9260-602-2

Citation: IRENA (2024), Tripling renewable power by 2030: The role of the G7 in turning targets into action, International
Renewable Energy Agency, Abu Dhabi.

About IRENA
The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) is an intergovernmental organisation that supports
countries in their transition to a sustainable energy future, and serves as the principal platform for international
co-operation, a centre of excellence, and a repository of policy, technology, resource and financial knowledge
on renewable energy. IRENA promotes the widespread adoption and sustainable use of all forms of renewable
energy, including bioenergy, geothermal, hydropower, ocean, solar and wind energy in the pursuit of sustainable
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Acknowledgements
IRENA is grateful for the external reviews and feedback received from Alex Campbell (LDES), Dave Jones (Ember),
Joyce Lee (GWEC) and Julia Souder (LDES).

This report was prepared by Michael Taylor, with inputs from Deborah Ayres, Xavier Casals, Sean Collins, Adrian
Gonzalez, Diala Hawila, Toyo Kawabata and Faran Rana (IRENA) under the guidance of Roland Roesch (Director, IRENA
Innovation and Technology Centre), with the support of the 2024 Italian G7 Presidency, to inform discussions during
meetings among senior officials as well the G7 Ministers' Meeting on Climate, Energy and Environment in Torino City on
29-30 April 2024. The report was edited by Lisa Mastny and the graphic design was provided by Nacho Sanz.

The report benefited from the reviews and comments provided by Francisco Boshell, Ute Collier, Ricardo Gorini,
Mohammed Nababa, Julian Prime, Mirjam Reiner, Michael Renner and James Walker and Binu Parthan (IRENA).

For further information or to provide feedback: [email protected]

This report is available at: www.irena.org/publications

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FOREWORD

The historic call at COP28 in the United Arab Emirates to triple

renewable power generation capacity and double the rate of energy
efficiency improvement by 2030, has set the stage for a rapid scaling
up of renewables in the remainder of this decade.

A record 473 gigawatts of renewable power capacity was added in

2023 worldwide; yet the trajectory to 2030 still remains short of that
required to meet the tripling goal and reach 11 terawatts of renewable
power in 2030 - particularly in terms of new additions of onshore and
offshore wind, hydropower, geothermal and bioenergy for power. Francesco La Camera

Director-General
The goal, however, remains within reach; thanks to the success achieved
International Renewable
in accelerating solar PV deployment, the world has time to accelerate Energy Agency
growth in these renewable power options to ensure the 2030 target
is met.

This requires urgent action, including strengthening existing policies

that have a proven track record and introducing new support policies
where needed. Most importantly, it is essential that key enablers for
the tripling of renewable power capacity are scaled up - notably in the
context of grids and storage.

The G7 has a vital role to play in delivering on the global tripling goal
- both directly through renewable power capacity expansion, and
indirectly by leading action to address deployment and integration
barriers, and in supporting emerging market and developing economies
in ramping up their own renewable capacities.

IRENA is grateful to the Italian G7 Presidency for its collaboration and

support, and remains committed to assisting its members in delivering
on the pledge to triple renewable power capacity by 2030 to keep the
world on a 1.5°C pathway. We know what is needed; it is now time to act
with the sense of urgency that the climate crisis demands.

3
TRIPLING RENEWABLE POWER BY 2030: THE ROLE OF THE G7 IN TURNING TARGETS INTO ACTION

CONTENTS

Figures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Abbreviations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Executive summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Key findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Key challenges. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Key recommendations to the G7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

1. Tripling renewable power by 2030:

The crucial role of the G7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

1.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

1.2 Tripling renewable power capacity by 2030: Implications for the G7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

2. Delivering on the tripling pledge:

Key enablers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

2.2 Grid expansion and increasing flexibility needs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

2.3 Financing investment in renewable power and electricity infrastructure. . . . . . . . . . . . 45

2.4 Electricity storage to 2030: Growing importance and required grid upgrades . . . . . . . 53

A skilled workforce to support the tripling of renewable power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

3 The vital role of international collaboration:

How the G7 can have a global impact. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

4
FIGURES
Figure 1 Global renewable power capacity in the tripling pledge, 2022 and 2030 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Figure 2 Global annual new capacity additions of renewable power, 2010-2023. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Figure 3 Individual country, regional and global renewable power targets in GW, 2030 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Figure 4 Individual country, regional and global renewable power targets by technology, 2030. . . . . . . 22

Figure 5 New capacity additions of renewable power in the G7 compared to what is required
for the tripling goal in 2023, 2015 -2023. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Figure 6 How Individual G7 country, regional and 1.5°C pathway power targets
for the G7 compared to current expectations for cumulative capacity in 2030. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Figure 7 Current expectations of cumulative renewable power capacity in the G7 in 2030

compared to country targets and a 1.5°C pathway consistent with the tripling goal
by technology, 2030. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Figure 8 Current expectations of global cumulative renewable power capacity to 2030

compared to the tripling goal, 2022-2030. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Figure 9 Current expectations of global cumulative renewable power capacity to 2030

compared to the tripling goal by technology, 2022-2030. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Figure 10 Generic pathways to align annual new capacity additions with the tripling pledge pathway. . . . 31

Figure 11 Global electricity generation under the tripling goal compared to current expectations,
2030 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Figure 12 Key areas where enabling frameworks are needed to address the barriers to achieving
the tripling of renewable power capacity by 2030. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Figure 13 Curtailment rates for solar, wind and variable renewable electricity by country,
2015-2023. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Figure 14 Grid curtailment of solar and wind, transmission network investment and planned and
completed line length for Germany, 2015-2022. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Figure 15 Investment by G7 countries in transmission and distribution grids, 2015-2022. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Figure 16 Anticipated solar and wind capacity in transmission system operators’ expansion plans
compared to current expectations of actual deployment in 2030. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Figure 17 Nominal, post-tax weighted-average cost of capital for utility-scale solar PV projects
by country, 2022-2024. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Figure 18 Nominal, post-tax weighted-average cost of capital for onshore wind projects
by country, 2022 and 2024. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Figure 19 Projected battery storage growth and required pumped hydropower capacity growth
to 2030. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Figure 20 Projected skill-delivery pathways . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

5
TRIPLING RENEWABLE POWER BY 2030: THE ROLE OF THE G7 IN TURNING TARGETS INTO ACTION TABLES AND ABBREVIATIONS

TABLES
Table 1 Global weighted-average cost of capital for solar PV, concentrating solar power,
and onshore and offshore wind power by year of commissioning, 2010 to 2023 . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Table 2 Key investment risks and mitigation tools to address them. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

ABBREVIATIONS
°C degrees Celsius

CO2 carbon dioxide

EMDEs emerging market and developing economies

EU European Union

GW gigawatt

GWh gigawatt hour

MW megawatt

NDC Nationally Determined Contribution

PV photovoltaic

TSO transmission system operator

TW terawatt

TWh terawatt hour

UAE United Arab Emirates

USD United States dollar

WACC weighted-average cost of capital

6
 Executive Summary

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Key findings

Achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement to avoid the dangerous and costly implications of
climate change is an urgent global priority. The tripling of renewable power capacity by 2030 is one
of the key metrics of this endeavour.

IRENA has extensive experience tracking the progress of the global energy transition and the
key performance indicators required for success in its World Energy Transitions Outlook. Building
on the Agency’s 1.5°C Scenario, which formed the intellectual and analytical basis for the tripling
pledge at COP28 in the United Arab Emirates (COP28 Presidency et al., 2023), IRENA continues to
track progress toward the 2030 target, assisting its Members and the international community in
delivering on the goals of the Paris Agreement.

The World Energy Transitions Outlook demonstrates that the tripling goal is challenging but
achievable. It does not imply every country will need to triple renewable power capacity, however;
individual countries face different starting points and national circumstances, resulting in different
contributions that may amount to more or less than a tripling.

2023 witnessed a historic acceleration in new global renewable capacity additions, which reached
473 GW - a jump of 54% over 2022. New solar PV capacity additions are soaring, as costs continue
to fall, and their contribution between 2023 and 2025 will keep the world on track to meet the
tripling goal. Capacity additions of global wind power also reached a new record in 2023.

New capacity additions globally in 2023 of onshore and offshore wind, hydropower, geothermal
and bioenergy for power did not increase at the pace required for a 1.5°C pathway. However,
the welcome acceleration in solar PV means there is still time to accelerate growth in the other
renewable power options to ensure the 2030 target is met.

Enabling policies with a proven track record of success are available to countries to accelerate new
renewable power capacity additions. This will not only keep the transition to renewable energy
on track, but also realise significant co-benefits in terms of increased energy security, economic
prosperity, local jobs and value creation, and lower climate and health costs of fossil fuel use.

The G7 will play an important role in delivering on the global tripling goal, both directly through the
expansion of renewable power capacity, and indirectly, by leading on action to address deployment
and integration barriers, and in supporting emerging and developing economies (EMDEs) in
delivering their contributions to the global tripling goal.

7
TRIPLING RENEWABLE POWER BY 2030: THE ROLE OF THE G7 IN TURNING TARGETS INTO ACTION

Key challenges

Overall, new renewable power capacity additions in 2024 and 2025 are likely to grow sufficiently
over 2023 levels; and, based on current deployment expectations, the world looks set to meet the
required level of solar PV capacity in 2030 for the tripling goal.

The G7 target for solar PV could also be achieved by 2030; however, additional policy efforts are
required, given that current trends for deployment imply a shortfall to the collective G7 target of
around 13%.

Of greater concern is that current trends suggest new capacity additions of onshore and offshore
wind, hydropower, geothermal, bioenergy and concentrating solar power (CSP) to 2030 will all fall
short of those required to meet the tripling goal – both among the G7 and globally.

The gap is expected to open up in 2026 and grow each year to 2030, as current growth in installed
capacity for all technologies except solar PV is expected to be linear - not exponential, as required.
Therefore, without further action today, the shortfall in 2030 could be as much as 2.3 TW (or 20%).

With onshore and offshore wind, bioenergy for power, geothermal and CSP contributing less than
anticipated, the implicit renewable power generation target will be missed by an even wider margin
(25%) – this is due to the higher capacity factors of these technologies compared to solar PV.1

There is still time to act to ensure that the tripling goal is met, given that the gap in new capacity
additions will begin to be felt in 2026. Urgent action is therefore required, as adjusting existing
policy settings or implementing new support packages takes considerable time. Expanding already
successful policy programmes, addressing more rapidly a number of key barriers to renewable power
capacity deployment and assisting EMDEs in scaling-up deployment can close the potential gap.

Capacity factor describes the ratio of 1) actual generation per GW of capacity over a year, to 2) what is theoretically possible if
1 

generation was at maximum output 24-hours per day, 365 days per year. As these technologies have higher capacity factors (on
average, globally) than solar PV, the subsequent deficit in capacity is magnified when considering generation output.

8
 Executive Summary

The rapid growth in renewable capacity additions must be accompanied by accelerated deployment
of crucial enabling infrastructure, such as: investment and progress in modernising, digitising and
expanding electricity grids; and increased adoption of grid flexibility options including energy
storage and demand side management. In 2023, investments in electricity grids and flexibility
sources to integrate higher shares of solar and wind power were USD 368 billion - around half of
the USD 720 billion on average required each and every year between 2024 and 2030 (inclusive)
(IRENA, 2024c).

The increase in inflation and base rates for borrowing as supply chains became strained during
and after the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as since the conflict in Ukraine, has resulted in significant
increases in the cost of capital for power generation projects since 2021. In the G7, this has not
fundamentally affected the competitiveness of renewable projects, given recent high fossil fuel
prices. However, the high cost of capital poses a real and immediate barrier to renewable power
deployment in many EMDEs, as they have seen disproportionate increases in the cost of capital for
renewable power projects.

Left unaddressed, the current slow progress in delivering these key enablers for the tripling goal
could begin to limit the deployment rate of new renewable power capacity in some countries to
levels below what is needed.

©CloudVisual/Shutterstock.com

9
TRIPLING RENEWABLE POWER BY 2030: THE ROLE OF THE G7 IN TURNING TARGETS INTO ACTION

Key recommendations to the G7

The G7 should increase dialogue around delivering its collective targets for solar PV and offshore
wind. Current expectations are that deployment will fall short of the collective G7 goal for solar PV,
but only by 13%. This gap can be closed with enhancements to existing policy. The situation is more
concerning for the G7’s collective target for offshore wind, where current expectations of a shortfall
of 46 gigawatts (GW) – just under a third - exist today.

Given rapidly falling solar PV costs, the G7 should consider raising its collective target of “at least
1 terawatt (TW) of solar PV in 2030” to “at least 1.3 TW of solar PV in 2030”, which would align the
G7 with a 1.5°C pathway consistent with the global tripling goal.

Similarly, the G7 should consider setting a collective goal for onshore wind power of 775 GW of
total installed capacity by 2030. This should be accompanied by policies and measures to address
permitting and grid connection delays, supply chain resilience and the growth of the skilled
workforce required.

Permitting processes that are cumbersome and not aligned with the urgency of the tripling goal,
as well as the slower than needed modernisation and expansion of electricity grids, risk becoming
major contraints to achieving the tripling goal. G7 governments should therefore consider the
following actions:

• Work more closely with national regulatory and planning authorities, and transmission system
operators (TSOs) to ensure that, at a minimum, TSO plans for the expansion of electricity
transmission and distribution systems are aligned with country targets, expected market
growth and the G7’s collective target for renewable power (whichever is higher).

• Urgently review progress in modernising, digitising and expanding electricity grids, as progress
in investment and metrics for grid congestion are lagging in many markets.

• Accelerate the implementation of measures that increase the flexibility of electricity systems,
and expand transmission and distribution system capabilities that, together, can help to relieve
grid constraints to new renewable power connections and generation. This can include, but
is not limited to, energy storage (including hybrid projects), demand-side management and
other clean flexibility options.

• Share best practices on, and work to ensure, the implementation of innovative business models
for providers of flexibility services, as well as creating ‘fit for purpose’, streamlined renewable
power project permitting systems and grid connection rules to achieve the tripling goal.

10
 Executive Summary

In order to maximise the generation from the renewable power capacity added, the G7 should
consider an electricity storage target that would bring forward storage capacity investments. Based
on IRENA analysis, this could take the form of:

• A collective, G7 commitment to adding at least 1–2 megawatts (MW) of electricity storage

capacity for every 10 MW of renewable power capacity added (depending on national
circumstances).2

A skilled workforce available at the right time and with the right skills will be crucial in achieving the
tripling goal, the G7 should consider:

• Undertaking a rapid assessment of potential misalignments in skills and work force availability
across the entire ecosystem required to deliver on the tripling goal.

• Introducing or expanding programmes to align education and vocational training programmes,

while expanding existing plans and programmes to manage potential misalignments in the
availability of skilled workforces for the tripling goal by location and skillset.

The G7 can support emerging and developing economies in delivering on the

tripling goal

The G7 has an opportunity to contribute not only to meeting the global tripling goal, but potentially
exceeding it by supporting emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) in delivering
their contribution. The G7 should consider assisting, or increasing assistance to, EMDEs in the
following areas:

• Efforts to increase the ability of local renewable power project developers to develop large,
high-quality project proposal pipelines in order to ensure an adequate supply of projects.

• Continuing to support capacity building, system operations, and development of support

policies and regulatory frameworks in EMDEs that facilitate renewable power deployment.

• Increasing the volume of public funds available for financing renewable power generation and
the required infrastructure, while using them strategically to reduce finance costs for projects
and to quickly crowd in greater private sector financing by:

This will depend on national circumstances and the balance of renewable capacity deployment. The “duration” of the electricity
2 

storage needs to increase over time and will need to average at least five hours for each MW of electricity storage capacity added
to 2030 in the G7, necessitating an increase in long-duration electricity storage.

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TRIPLING RENEWABLE POWER BY 2030: THE ROLE OF THE G7 IN TURNING TARGETS INTO ACTION

• Working with stakeholders (e.g. project developers, policy makers and energy planners,
development finance institutions, multi-lateral development banks, etc.) to develop
standardised – and easy to access and process – financing products that address the three
main cost drivers of the high weighted-average cost of capital (WACC) in EMDEs: country
risk, exchange rate risk and offtake risk.

• Prioritising “high-impact” public financing that can leverage greater renewable capacity roll-
out in grid expansion, TSO management and assessment capabilities, storage solutions, etc.

• Linking additional financing needs to deliver greater ambition in countries’ Nationally

Determined Contributions (NDCs) to ensure that the global South can access low-cost
financing that matches its ambition.

• Supporting EMDEs’ domestic abilities to develop ambitious energy sector NDCs, which today
are too often narrowly focused on a subset of energy technologies/uses or rely on outdated
data, due to a number of constraints that these countries face. Fully aligning NDCs with
the outcomes of target setting that reflects the tripling goal would create new momentum.
Crucially, efforts to include greater ambition in NDCs should come with support to allow the
scale-up of up the enabling measures necessary to deliver on the tripling goal (e.g. market
and regulatory reform, grid expansion, system operation, storage technologies and other
clean electricity system resources, demand-pull, electrification, etc.).

• Support EMDEs in accelerating the deployment of wind power technology, particularly

onshore wind, as this provides the second largest source of new capacity in the tripling target.
The current trend in new capacity additions for wind power is insufficient to meet the tripling
goal. Activities could focus on:

• Implementing best practices in permitting and environmental regulation, noting the

importance of ensuring sufficient, low-cost financing is available, as outlined above.

• The opportunity for the G7 to work with the global South to build more resilient and
diversified supply chains. Regional co-ordination of targets could send clear market size
information to investors, when backed by secured off-takers for new projects. Recent
difficulties in the sector are in part due to supply chain issues and broader international
collaboration, based on fair trade principles; co-ordination on supply chains would result
in lower costs, higher energy security and healthier supply chains ready to support further
growth in EMDEs and the G7.

IRENA, with its near universal membership and deep collaboration with Members, has acquired
a comprehensive understanding how EMDEs’ diverse priorities need to be factored into tailored
national energy transitions. Drawing on IRENA’s extensive knowledge base, well-tested capacity
building methods, incisive analysis and proven convening power, the Agency can support the G7’s
efforts to work with EMDEs in the areas of highest impact for both groups. As a trusted, independent
source of advice, IRENA can play a crucial role in delivering a global tripling in renewable power
capacity in a manner that meets the goals of the G7 and EMDEs.

12
 Tripling renewable power by 2030: The crucial role
of the G7

1. TRIPLING RENEWABLE POWER

BY 2030: THE CRUCIAL ROLE
OF THE G7

1.1 Introduction

The economic and environmental benefits of renewable power are now overwhelming. In 2022,
renewable power generation reduced the fuel costs of the electricity system by over USD 500 billion
(IRENA, 2023a), insulating the world from what was probably the greatest fossil fuel price shock
since the Second World War. The acceleration of renewable power capacity deployment in 2023
reflects the growing realisation that the key selling point of renewable power today is its economic
benefits. However, the growth in new renewable power capacity additions needs to be accelerated
if the tripling goal is to be met.

With each passing day that the world falls behind the progress in renewable power capacity
deployment required to deliver a pathway consistent with achieving a sustainable energy system by
2050 – which also requires a doubling in the rate of energy efficiency improvement – the challenge
and the cost of avoiding dangerous climate change grows. The welcome acceleration in renewable
power deployment in 2023 shows there is still time to act.

The international community is ramping up efforts to combat dangerous and costly climate change.
On 20 May 2023, in the G7 leaders’ communiqué from Hiroshima under the Japanese presidency,
G7 members agreed to a goal of “expanding renewable energy globally and bringing down costs”
(G7, 2023) by aiming to increase their solar PV capacity to at least 1 terawatt (TW) by 2030 and
adding 150 gigawatts (GW) of new offshore wind capacity, raising the total G7 country offshore
wind capacity to at least 173 GW in 2030.

That momentum was maintained when, on 9 September 2023, the G20 leaders’ communiqué under
the Indian presidency stated that the G20 would “pursue and encourage efforts to triple renewable
energy capacity globally through existing targets and policies” by 2030 (G20, 2023).

Finally, the COP28 negotiations in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) yielded, on 13 December 2023,
the first Global Stocktake text of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC, 2023). This called on all Parties to contribute to the tripling of renewable power generation
capacity by 2030, and to doubling the rate of energy efficiency improvement. In addition, more
than 130 countries signed the Global Renewables and Energy Efficiency Pledge, declaring their
“intent to work collaboratively and expeditiously to pursue” those goals (COP28 Presidency, 2023).3

Throughout this report, the tripling goal contained within the Global Stocktake text, the Global Renewables and Energy Efficiency
3 

Pledge and the UAE Consensus is referred to as the “tripling goal” or “tripling pledge”. Where necessary for clarity, the text points
to the specific instrument that is being referred to, to avoid confusion.

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TRIPLING RENEWABLE POWER BY 2030: THE ROLE OF THE G7 IN TURNING TARGETS INTO ACTION

The goals in the UAE Consensus, which include an unprecedented reference to transitioning away
from all fossil fuels in energy systems, in addition to the tripling pledge, represent a significant leap
in ambition.

Crucially, the UAE Consensus goals, including the tripling goal, are ambitious but achievable. The
world has the technologies available today to deliver on the goal of tripling renewable power
capacity by 2030 and doubling the rate of energy efficiency improvement. The tripling goal entails
that, by 2030, the world would need to increase renewable power generation capacity from around
3.4 TW in 2022 to around 11.2 TW in 2030, an increase of around 7.8 TW in eight years (Figure 1).
With the welcome acceleration in renewable power capacity additions over the last two years, this
goal can be achieved, with the right policies.

However, current estimates are that the world risks being below the trajectory needed on growth
in renewable power generation capacity to 2030, despite the acceleration seen in 2023. Thus, a
range of barriers remain that need to be addressed to reach the goal. If the world fails to deliver on
the tripling goal, it will not be due to any gaps in the technologies available to us, a lack of financial
resources, or cost challenges, but because of a failure to co-ordinate and collaborate to deliver the
enabling frameworks and infrastructure that will allow the goals to be met. The year 2023 has given
us a timely reminder that when the policy environment and economic incentives support the flow
of public and private sector capital to where it is needed, renewable power capacity additions can
grow rapidly.

Figure 1 G
 lobal renewable power capacity in the tripling pledge, 2022 and 2030

All values in GW
2022 2030
1 465 72
Hydro
(excl.pumped)
Marine 105
Geothermal
0.5 14.6
Marine Geothermal
343 3 040
836 Bioenergy
Wind
1 255 Wind onshore onshore
Hydro
(excl.
3 382
GW
63
Wind
11 174
pumped) GW 494
offshore 6.6
Wind offshore
151 CSP
Bioenergy 1055 5 457 197
Solar PV Solar PV CSP

Renewable power Renewable power

Total share Total share
in installed
23 % 40% in installed
62 % 77%
capacity capacity
VRE VRE
Source: (COP28 Presidency, IRENA and GRA, 2023).
Note: CSP = concentrated solar power; GW = gigawatt; PV = photovoltaic; VRE= variable renewable energy; bioenergy includes
biogas, biomass waste and biomass solid

14
 Tripling renewable power by 2030: The crucial role
of the G7

It cannot be overstated how important it is to urgently accelerate the energy transition. Limiting
global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius (°C) above pre-industrial levels by the end of
this century, in line with the Paris Agreement, requires rapid, sustained and concerted action. The
biggest challenge that the G7 and the world faces is time.

Balcony-mounted solar PV can be added in days or weeks, rooftop solar PV in weeks or months,
but gigawatt-scale offshore wind projects need five to seven years to come onstream, whereas grid
infrastructure can sometimes take even longer.

With a little over six years to deliver on the global tripling goal by 2030, the urgency of the
challenge that the G7 and the world faces demands decisiveness combined with a focus on effective
solutions. Without a day to waste, collaboration, co-ordination and peer-to-peer knowledge sharing
become great assets in unlocking accelerated deployment and in de-bottlenecking the challenges
to accelerated renewable power deployment and grid integration. In learning from each other, it
is possible to shorten discovery processes to determine what works and what does not, avoiding
costly mistakes and delays.

Success in achieving the goal of tripling renewable power generation capacity to at least4 11.2 TW
by 2030 and doubling the rate of energy efficiency will be determined as much by how successfully
the G7 collaborates together and supports emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs),
as by the individual actions of each G7 country.

It also needs to be re-stated: the goals of the UAE Consensus are not “nice to have”; they are
essential targets. Renewable power and energy efficiency represent the only two levers left5 to the
world that can scale rapidly enough and in sufficient volumes achieve a pathway by 2030 that is
consistent with the Paris Agreement goals. If the world fails in delivering the UAE Consensus, it will
fail in delivering the Paris Agreement goals.

The UAE Consensus and the goal of tripling renewable power capacity by 2030 represent delivering
not only on the G7s international commitments, but unlocking increased energy security, economic
prosperity, local jobs and value creation, lower balance-of-payment costs, and lower climate and
health costs. It is an opportunity for the G7 to lead on international collaboration and leverage its
expertise, financing and capacity building to help the world achieve its collective target for 2030.

The analysis in IRENA’s World Energy Transitions Outlook, on which the tripling goal is based, is dependent on accelerated
4 

decarbonisation of the end-use sectors, where there also remains a risk of under-delivery to 2030. This would necessitate that the
power sector “over delivers” to 2030 to compensate.
In combination with increased electrification of end-use sectors.
5 

15
TRIPLING RENEWABLE POWER BY 2030: THE ROLE OF THE G7 IN TURNING TARGETS INTO ACTION

To aid the G7 in this process, this report covers the following crucial areas:

1. The implications of the goal of tripling renewable power generation capacity by 2030 for
individual G7 countries, and the risks in terms of delivery.

2. A discussion of a number of the key enablers essential to delivering the 2030 goals, including
grids, financing and electricity storage.

3. The potential role of international collaboration in achieving a global pledge that has to be
delivered by countries without individual targets. This includes a special emphasis on how
the G7 can leverage its existing activities, expertise, knowledge and programmes to support
EMDEs in delivering on their contribution to the pledge.

1.2 Tripling renewable power capacity by 2030: Implications for the G7

The world is at a crossroads. IRENA’s World Energy Transitions Outlook 2023 has identified that global
energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions need to fall to 23 gigatonnes of CO2 (GtCO2) by 2030
(IRENA, 2023a). Yet those emissions rose to a record high of 37.4 GtCO2 in 2023 (IEA, 2024). Despite
progress in the growth of renewable energy deployment, the world therefore remains off track, and
urgently needs to shift focus to accelerating today’s commercially available, scalable solutions.

The stakes have never been higher. Not delivering the tripling of renewable power capacity by 2030
and the doubling of the rate of energy efficiency improvement, when combined with transitioning
away from fossil fuels, will result in failure to achieve the Paris Agreement goals.

The Global Renewables and Energy Efficiency Pledge (COP28 Presidency, n.d.) and the text in the
First Global Stocktake communication from the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Dubai
(COP28) (UNFCCC, 2023), are timely reminders that the world has the solutions it needs today. The
two texts identify the core elements of what is needed to get on track. They are a call to action and
a reminder that there is a technically and economically feasible pathway to 2030 that will ensure
that we avoid the worst of dangerous climate change and keep the Paris Agreement goals in play.

Urgency is required, as tripling renewable power capacity by 2030 and doubling the rate of
improvement in energy efficiency represent, whilst transitioning away from fossil fuels, the only
realistic options for achieving the scale of CO2 reductions that are necessary by 2030. Renewable
power generation technology, in particular, has proven its ability to rapidly accelerate deployment
rates, when grid access is facilitated, the right price signals are seen by consumers and investors,
and when the policy and regulatory framework is conducive to their growth.

The tripling goal for 2030 represents an average new capacity addition requirement of 974 GW
for each and every year between 2022 and 2030. The world therefore needs to rapidly ramp up
capacity additions from the 308 GW added in 2022 (Figure 2) and in the investments in grids and
storage, which go hand-in-hand with renewable capacity deployment growth.

16
 Tripling renewable power by 2030: The crucial role
of the G7

©Kampan/Shutterstock.com

The year 2023 represents a historic acceleration in new renewable capacity additions and
offers compelling evidence that the tripling goal is achievable. The fossil fuel price crisis of 2022
demonstrated that individuals and businesses will rapidly respond when the incentives to accelerate
renewable power deployment are in place and when governments have done the hard work to
establish the right policy, regulatory and market frameworks.

Total new renewable power capacity additions globally grew 54% year-on-year, from 308 GW6
added in 2022 to 473 GW added in 2023, a new record by a long margin. Around 346 GW of solar
PV was added in 2023, 74% more than the previous record of 199 GW added in 2022. The other
major contributors in 2023 were onshore wind power, which added around 105 GW globally, in
addition to offshore wind (11 GW), hydropower (7 GW) and bioenergy for power (4 GW).

In this context, 2023 represents a remarkable acceleration driven by falling renewable power
costs (especially for solar PV), the fossil fuel price crisis of 2022 that lingered well into 2023 and,
in some markets, reinvigorated industrial policy. To put 2023 in context, just the increase in new
capacity additions between the 308 GW added in 2022 and the 473 GW added in 2023 (an increase
of 166 GW year-on-year) would have represented a new record of total new renewable power
capacity additions any year before 2017.

The solar PV capacity additions in 2023 of 346 GW (74% higher than in 2022) accounted for almost
three-quarters (73%) of all new capacity additions. Excluding 2022, just the increase in new PV
additions in 2023 of 146 GW (from 199 GW in 2022 to 346 GW) would have been a new annual
capacity record for solar PV. Put another way, the new capacity additions in 2023 were almost
equal to all new solar PV capacity additions in the eight years from 2010 to 2017, inclusive. Onshore
wind also saw a significant increase in new capacity additions during 2023, to more than 105 GW,
matching its previous record in 2020, but this time on a much more durable basis.

The slow and steady growth in new capacity additions between 2010 and 2019 represented a
continuous underperformance compared to what is needed to avoid dangerous climate change.
Particularly in 2015-2019, this growth had clearly not been aligned with the goals that the countries
of the world adopted in Paris or the global goal to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable
and modern energy for all under the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

All data cited for renewable power generation capacity in this report are in alternating current (AC) terms, unless expressly noted.
6 

17
TRIPLING RENEWABLE POWER BY 2030: THE ROLE OF THE G7 IN TURNING TARGETS INTO ACTION

Figure 2 G
 lobal annual new capacity additions of renewable power, 2010-2023

500

450

400

350

300
GW

250

200

150

100

50

0
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023
Ocean/tidal/wave Geothermal CSP Bioenergy Hydropower (excl. pumped)
Wind offshore Wind onshore Solar PV

Source: (IRENA, 2024a).

Four key points can be taken from the record growth in new capacity additions in 2023:

1. Aligning economic incentives for new renewable power deployment can drive the accelerated
deployment required to meet the tripling goal.

During the fossil fuel price crisis in 2022 and 2023, individuals, businesses, utilities and
industries were given a compelling reminder of just how competitive renewable power has
become, as well as its ability to insulate electricity users from volatile fossil fuel prices. They
responded by investing heavily in new renewable power generation capacity.

2. The energy security benefits of renewable power are clear, and policy makers should also
consider the macroeconomic costs of fossil fuel price shocks.

The year 2022 was the year that the energy security benefits of renewable power were
“rediscovered”. Renewable power helped reduce the fossil fuel bill of the global electricity
system by USD 521 billion (IRENA, 2023b) in 2022. Policy makers would be wise to find ways to
value these benefits, as well as the role that renewables play in reducing the macroeconomic
and social costs that stem from fossil fuel price shocks (IRENA, 2024b).

18
 Tripling renewable power by 2030: The crucial role
of the G7

3. Lacklustre support for accelerating the growth in renewable power deployment between 2012
and 2019 made the 2022 fossil fuel price shock worse than it needed to be, as did the lack of
reform of electricity markets.

A lack of urgency in accelerating solar and wind power between 2012 and 2019 as costs fell
dramatically meant that economies were more vulnerable to the fossil fuel price shock of
2022, exacerbating the costs. Similarly, the slow pace of electricity market reforms meant
that consumers typically did not benefit from the fact that cash costs for existing renewable
power did not increase materially in 2022 (IRENA, 2023b).

4. The ability of solar and wind power technologies to rapidly accelerate deployment in response
to market and policy signals is second to none, with solar PV a clear leader.

In 2023, the 54% increase in new renewable power capacity additions, smashed the record
of 2022, with a surge in solar PV deployment that saw it account for a record 73% of new
renewable capacity additions (IRENA, 2024a). This is a testament to the competitiveness of
solar and wind power, and their ability to scale rapidly. This is crucial to why the tripling goal
is at once ambitious, but eminently achievable.

The tripling goal is challenging, however, as an average of 974 GW of new renewable capacity is
needed each and every year between 2022 and 2030 to achieve the tripling goal, new capacity
addition records need to be broken by a significant margin each year to 2030. The moment the rate
of increase in new capacity additions slows, the more challenging the goal becomes. This implies
policy makers need to anticipate challenges, not react to them if the goal is to be met.

Overview of existing G7 country targets, regional and global targets, and trends
to 2030

The goal for tripling renewable power capacity by 2030 is global, it does not include individual
country targets. Depending on national circumstances, countries will need to expand renewable
power by more or less than a tripling if the world is to achieve the tripling goal. Indeed, countries
and regions starting from a low base may need to more than triple, while others will increase by less
than a tripling if they are already starting from high shares of renewable power generation.

All G7 countries have some renewable energy targets or commitments, either national and/or as
a result of their membership in different regional or global forums. These targets or commitments
may vary in nature: at a country level they may be “light” or “implicit” as implied in official energy
scenarios, or they may be legally binding due to their direct or indirect inclusion in legislation. Thus,
although there are no specific targets in the pledge, it is possible to glean some information about
what targets individual G7 countries (or the fora they belong to) have set, and how these compare
to a 1.5°C pathway that is consistent with the tripling goal.

19
TRIPLING RENEWABLE POWER BY 2030: THE ROLE OF THE G7 IN TURNING TARGETS INTO ACTION

This tapestry of nested commitments needs to be understood in order to make sense of the role
that national commitments play in the delivery of these high-level targets, as well as identify to what
extent existing targets might, or might not, be compatible with successful delivery of the tripling goal.

Figure 3 provides an overview of these targets for 2030. The combined explicit and implicit targets7 for
cumulative renewable power generation capacity in 2030 of each individual G7 country totals around
2 TW for 2030, with the United States accounting for 47% of that. These are a mix of explicit (announced
as government policy) and implicit (embedded in government energy or climate scenarios) goals.

In addition, each G7 country is part of a joint commitment “to expanding renewable energy globally
and bringing down costs” by aiming to increase solar PV capacity to at least 1 TW by 2030 and
to add 150 GW of new offshore wind capacity, raising the total G7 country capacity to at least
173 GW in 2030. This is the legacy of the G7 leaders’ communique (COP28 Presidency, n.d.; COP28
Presidency, IRENA and GRA, 2023; Ember, 2023; European Commission, 2023; G7, 2023) from
Hiroshima under the Japanese presidency of 2023.

The absence of a collective G7 target for onshore wind and other renewable power technologies
means that this target cannot be easily compared to individual country targets, or to the European
Union (EU), G20 or tripling pledge.

Germany, France and Italy are also impacted by the EU goals, which have recently increased in
ambition; the target under the REPowerEU initiative totals 1 234 GW. The EU is targeting a cumulative
installed capacity of solar PV of around 590 GW by 2030, along with nearly 400 GW of onshore
wind and 111 GW of offshore wind, with other renewable power technologies contributing 134 GW.

Also relevant is the G20 target agreed under the Indian Presidency, to “pursue and encourage
efforts to triple renewable energy capacity globally through existing targets and policies”. IRENA’s
analysis and briefing of G20 members – which would require them to, collectively, reach 9 355 GW
of renewable power capacity by 2030 – was instrumental in building the confidence in the target. It
demonstrated the coherence of this target within the overall framework of efforts by G20 members
to keep the Paris Agreement goals alive.

Finally, the joint report Tripling Renewable Power and Doubling Energy Efficiency by 2030: Crucial
Steps Towards 1.5°C (published in 2023 by IRENA, the Global Renewables Alliance and the COP28
Presidency), as well as IRENAs efforts to inform stakeholders via briefings and events, the tireless
political engagement of many IRENA Member States (including in the G7), and civil society efforts –
were crucial in seeing around 130 countries sign on to the Global Renewables and Energy Efficiency
Pledge. It also contributed to the knowledge base that allowed negotiators to ensure that the First
Global Stocktake included the following text:

Not all countries have explicit targets for renewable power generation capacity in 2030. For instance, for Canada and the United
7 

States, no explicit targets at a national level have been set. The targets presented here for these two countries are from official
government scenarios for 2030. The source for all country data in this section, unless explicitly mentioned is from Ember (2023).

20
 Tripling renewable power by 2030: The crucial role
of the G7

Further recognises the need for deep, rapid and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas
emissions in line with 1.5°C pathways and calls on Parties to contribute to the following global
efforts, in a nationally determined manner, taking into account the Paris Agreement and their
different national circumstances, pathways and approaches:
- Tripling renewable energy capacity globally and doubling the global average annual rate of
energy efficiency improvements by 2030.

This goal sets a target for cumulative renewable power generation capacity in 2030 of 11.2 TW.
Notably, the difference between the G20 goal and the global goal in the tripling pledge is only
1.8 TW. With individual G20 countries accounting for around 62%8 of the world’s population, there
is a significant upside to this renewable power capacity value in 2030 if the rest of the world is
empowered to deliver an accelerated energy transition that also addresses sustainable development
goals, which includes elements in addition to renewable power capacity.

Figure 3 I ndividual country, regional and global renewable power targets in GW, 2030

115 125 128 131 202 373 938 1 173 1 234 9 355 11 174

United United Tripling

France Canada Italy Japan Germany G7 EU G20
Kingdom States pledge

Sources: (COP28 Presidency, IRENA and GRA, 2023; Ember, 2023; European Commission, 2023; G7, 2023).
Notes: T
 he data for individual countries, the EU, G20, the tripling goal and the targets are for all renewable power technologies.
The G7 target is only for solar PV and offshore wind. For Canada and the United States, no explicit targets at a national level
have been set. The targets presented here for these two countries are from official government scenarios for 2030. The
source for all country data is Ember (2023).

Figure 4 presents the targets by country and bloc, and by technology. For onshore and offshore
wind, the global tripling goal’s targets9 are 9% and 6% higher, respectively, than the G20 value.
However, this is not the case for solar PV and “other renewables”, where new capacity additions are
expected to be more widely distributed. The global tripling pledge value for solar PV is 20% higher
than the G20 value, and for “other renewables” it is 40% higher. The difference is largest for “other
renewables” due mainly to hydropower, where the unrealised economic potential is higher outside
of G20 countries.

Excluding the “other EU” Member States.

8 

There are no explicit targets for individual technologies in the global tripling pledge. When 'targets' or 'values' for 2030 are
9 

referenced in the text, they simply refer to the advice provided by the COP28 Presidency, IRENA and the Global Renewables
Alliance in the joint report, Tripling Renewable Power and Doubling Energy Efficiency by 2030: Crucial Steps Towards 1.5°C.

21
TRIPLING RENEWABLE POWER BY 2030: THE ROLE OF THE G7 IN TURNING TARGETS INTO ACTION

For solar PV and offshore wind, where the G7 countries have individual goals, whether explicit or
implicit, and the G7 itself has an overall goal, we can see that there remains a significant ambition
gap. Individual G7 countries’ targets for offshore wind total around 127 GW, which is around
46 GW (27%) less than the requirement for the G7 goal of adding an additional 150 GW by 2030.
For solar PV, individual G7 country targets, at 980 GW, are more or less in alignment with the target
of a minimum of 1 TW of cumulative capacity set by the G7 in 2023.

Figure 4 I ndividual country, regional and global renewable power targets by technology, 2030

G7 individual country targets

G7 collective: offshore wind

Offshore
wind G20

Trippling pledge

G7 individual country targets

Other
G20
renewable
Trippling pledge

G7 individual country targets

Onshore
G20
wind
Trippling pledge

G7 individual country targets

G7 collective: PV
Solar PV
G20

Trippling pledge

0 500 1 000 1 500 2 000 2 500 3 000 3 500 4 000 4 500 5 000 5 500
GW

ALL RENEWABLE POWER

G7 individual country targets

G7 collective: PV & offshore wind

G20

Trippling pledge

0 1 000 2 000 3 000 4 000 5 000 6 000 7 000 8 000 9 000 10 000 11 000
GW

Source: (COP28 Presidency, IRENA and GRA, 2023; Ember, 2023; European Commission, 2023; G7, 2023).

22
 Tripling renewable power by 2030: The crucial role
of the G7

Current G7 country targets, expectations for deployment and a 1.5°C pathway

for the G7

Each G7 country’s specific national circumstances, resource endowment and energy system
structure ensures that the future will look very different for each country in the G7, as they navigate
a pathway to reaching their domestic, regional and global commitments.

With the G7 looking to show leadership with earlier decarbonisation of the electricity sector than in
many emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs), the G7 needs to lead the way in terms
of accelerating new renewable power capacity additions. However, the rapid acceleration in new
deployment capacity in the G7 and the world in 2023 was largely the result of the record additions
of solar PV.

This is visible in Figure 5, where the 64 GW of new solar PV capacity added in 2023 by the G7 was
2.7 times higher than seven years previously (in 2016) and falls within the range of what could be
expected for a pathway consistent with the tripling goal. New offshore wind capacity additions are
below what is needed for the tripling goal but are expected to accelerate towards 2030, given that
there is greater visibility on offshore wind given its longer lead times.

The major concern, as has been the case for a number of years, is the relatively modest new capacity
additions of onshore wind, which were actually lower in 2022 than in 2016 and less than half what
is consistent with a tripling pathway for the G7.

Figure 5 N
 ew capacity additions of renewable power in the G7 compared to what is required for the
tripling goal in 2023, 2015 -2023

225 220

200 200

180
175
160
New capacity added (GW)

New capacity added (GW)

150
140
125 120

100 100

80
75
60
50
40
25 20

0 0
2022
2023

2022
2023

2022
2023
2022
2023

2022
2023

2015

2017
2015

2017

2015

2017

2015

2017

2015

2017

2019

2019
2019

2019

2019

2020
2018

2020

2016

2018
2016

2018

2020

2016

2018

2020

2016

2018

2020

2016
2021

2021

2021
2021

2021

Wind offshore Wind onshore Other renewables Solar PV Total for G7

Analysis based on: (IRENA, 2023c, 2024a).

23
TRIPLING RENEWABLE POWER BY 2030: THE ROLE OF THE G7 IN TURNING TARGETS INTO ACTION

Welcome progress in the accelerated deployment of renewable power generation in every

G7 country, however, masks the fact that, collectively, the rate of progress is currently expected
to be too slow from 2026 to 2030 in the G7 and globally for the tripling goal. The acceleration of
solar PV deployment, however, means that this gap from 2026 can be addressed if urgent action
by policy makers is taken to enhance existing support policies and address the other key enabling
areas (e.g. with respect to grid expansion, financing, storage rollout, etc.) before the goal is put
in jeopardy.

How large is the emerging gap between current expectations for deployment by 2030 and what is
needed for the collective G7 target and what would be consistent with a 1.5°C pathway for the G7
by 2030?

Looking specifically at the G7 countries and their current trajectory relative to these goals, three
points are clear:

1. Current expectations are that deployment of solar PV and of onshore and offshore wind
under current policies will fall short of individual G7 country targets for these technologies by
around 275 GW in 2030.

2. The country targets are close to the collective G7 target for 2030 for solar PV, with only a
20 GW deficit. However, for offshore wind the gap is 46 GW. Thus, for offshore wind, the G7
needs to consider how to co-ordinate efforts to close that gap in order to be able to deliver
on the collective target.

3. Finally, there is a gap, of a further 527 GW, between the collective targets of the G7 for offshore
wind and solar PV and the individual country targets for onshore wind, and what is needed for
the G7 as a group to hit a 1.5°C pathway.

Today’s expectations for new capacity additions of solar PV and of onshore and offshore wind to
2030 show that, collectively, G7 countries are expected to reach a cumulative installed capacity of
around 1 410 GW by 2030 (Figure 6). This is around 868 GW (38%) lower than a 1.5°C pathway for
G7 countries that would be in alignment with the global tripling pledge for the G7.

This gap represents an undershoot (based on today’s policies and macroeconomic environment)
relative to the tripling goal that is significant and is sufficiently large to place the success of the
global goal in jeopardy. However, as noted, policy makers have time to adjust course and meet the
G7’s share of the tripling goal, if urgent action is taken now.

24
 Tripling renewable power by 2030: The crucial role
of the G7

Figure 6 H
 ow Individual G7 country, regional and 1.5°C pathway power targets for the G7 compared to
current expectations for cumulative capacity in 2030

Cumulative gap
-207 (2030)
295
2 000 0
122
198
20
34 -774 326
105 46
Cumulative capacuty in 2030 (GW)

GW
1 500 128 -500
41 420

1 000 875 -1 000

-1 295

500

448

85
0
Current Gap to Gap - Gap - 1.5°C
expectations country targets Country targets Targets to pathway
to collective G7 1.5°C pathway for the G7

Wind offshore Wind onshore Solar PV

Source: Analysis based on (Ember, 2023; IRENA, 2023d; SolarPower Europe, 2023; WindEurope, 2024; Wood Mackenzie, 2024).

Examining Figure 6 in more detail shows that, of the missing 275 GW needed to close the gap from
current expectations of cumulative capacity in 2030 to meet individual country targets, policies need
to unlock an additional 105 GW of solar PV, 128 GW of onshore wind and 41 GW of offshore wind.

That would still mean that the individual country targets in the G7 for solar PV and offshore wind
would be 66 GW below 2023’s agreed collective target. For offshore wind, individual country
targets total around 126 GW in 2030, 27% (46 GW) lower than the implied collective G7 target of
173 GW agreed in 2023.

Finally, there remains a gap between the collective G7 target for offshore wind and the country-level
onshore wind targets compared to a G7 pathway consistent with a 1.5°C pathway. The collective
goal for the G7 for solar PV in 2030 is, however, less than what is consistent with a 1.5°C pathway.
This remaining gap of 527 GW is mainly driven by solar PV (295 GW) and onshore wind (200 GW),
with just 43 GW attributable to offshore wind.

Overall, when looking at the gap between current trends in deployment – based on existing policies
and macroeconomic conditions – the expected cumulative total installed capacity of solar PV and
of onshore and offshore wind in 2030 is 868 GW lower than what is needed for a 1.5°C pathway in
2030. Policies need to unlock an additional 420 GW of new solar PV capacity additions relative to
today’s projections, as well as 326 GW of onshore wind and 122 GW of offshore wind, to 2030.

25
TRIPLING RENEWABLE POWER BY 2030: THE ROLE OF THE G7 IN TURNING TARGETS INTO ACTION

If this does not occur, the G7 as a whole will significantly undershoot a pathway for renewable
power capacity additions that would be consistent with the global tripling pledge. This “missing”
capacity for 2030 (868 GW) in the G7, collectively, places the tripling goal in jeopardy.

Looking at just current deployment expectations, country targets and what would be needed for
a 1.5°C pathway form a technology perspective (Figure 7), it can be seen that most G7 countries
are expected to deploy significantly less than what might be needed for the G7 as a whole to meet
their individual country targets, which, as noted, are already lower than what would be required for
a 1.5°C pathway for the G7 in 2030.

Figure 7 C
 urrent expectations of cumulative renewable power capacity in the G7 in 2030 compared to
country targets and a 1.5°C pathway consistent with the tripling goal by technology, 2030

By technology G7 total

1 250

2 000

1 000

1 500

750
GW

GW
1 000
500

500
250

0 0
Offshore Wind Onshore Wind Solar PV

Current expectations 2030 country targets 1.5°C pathway

Source: Analysis based on (BNEF, 2023a, 2024a; IRENA, 2023c; SolarPower Europe, 2023; WindEurope, 2024).
Note: This chart excludes the collective G7 targets for offshore wind and solar PV in order to be able to make a direct comparison
relative to total solar and wind power deployment.

With the recent challenges experienced by the offshore wind industry, the G7 may miss current
country targets by 41 GW in 2030; but even these are 46 GW below the collective G7 target, which
is in turn around 34 GW below a level that approaches the required amount for the tripling goal.

26
 Tripling renewable power by 2030: The crucial role
of the G7

©fokke baarssen/Shutterstock.com

Current expectations are that solar PV deployment to 2030 will fall below the collective target,
even as the world appears to be on track to meet the solar PV capacity highlighted in the report
by the COP28 Presidency, IRENA and the Global Renewables Alliance that details the intellectual
basis for the tripling pledge (COP28 Presidency, IRENA and GRA 2023). Thus, despite the recent
acceleration in solar PV deployment, more work is needed to unlock continued growth in new
capacity additions to 2030 in the G7.

The majority of the projected gap, across all technologies, emerges as a significant delivery
challenge after 2026 for the G7. Policy makers in the G7 therefore should act urgently to enhance
policy settings, address non-market barriers and introduce new support policies as needed.

The situation for wind power is concerning, especially in the case of offshore wind. Given offshore
wind projects take four to seven years to commission after a procurement process, this implies that
the window for addressing this gap will close as early as in the next year or so. At the very least, it
will be challenging for the industry to bridge this gap if certainty is not provided this year (in 2024)
around the required commissioning timelines and volumes.

Global trends in renewable power capacity growth and the tripling goal

The acceleration in new renewable power capacity additions that occurred in 2023 is not expected
to be replicated to the same extent in 2024 and beyond.10 However, the rate of growth appears
to be sufficient to ensure that the world remains on track to achieve the tripling goal in terms of
renewable power generation capacity in 2024 and 2025.

For instance, in its central estimate, BloombergNEF expects that new solar PV capacity additions in 2024 will increase by around
10 

30% compared to 2023, dropping to a 9% increase in 2025 over 2024 (BNEF, 2024a).

27
TRIPLING RENEWABLE POWER BY 2030: THE ROLE OF THE G7 IN TURNING TARGETS INTO ACTION

Trends in global renewable power capacity growth globally compared to the tripling pledge

Despite the progress in 2023, current expectations are that the growth in new renewable power
capacity additions from 2026 will slow. This trend indicates that, with current policy settings, the
world is not on track to meet the tripling goal for 2030 (Figure 8), unless policy adjustments are
made, and, as noted, made very soon. Figure 8 shows that current forecasts for renewable power
deployment start to fall materially below the tripling goal pathway after 2026, and that in the space
of just four years, a gap of around 2.3 TW could open up if urgent action is not taken.

Figure 8 C
 urrent expectations of global cumulative renewable power capacity to 2030 compared to the
tripling goal, 2022-2030

Tripling goal vs current expectations Surplus/deficit relative

for renewable power growth to tripling goal

12 000 0

10 000
-500

8 000
GW

GW

-1 000
6 000

4 000 -1 500

2 000
-2 000

0
2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030
2022
2023

2025

2027

2029
2030
2026

2028
2024

Forecast Tripling goal

New renewable power capacity

The situation rapidly deteriorates from 2026 onwards additions are forecast to scale
and a gap of 2 260 GW potentially opens up by 2030 in line with the tripling goal
to 2025

Analysis based on: (IRENA, 2023d; SolarPower Europe, 2023; WindEurope, 2024; Wood Mackenzie, 2024).

When looking at the trends by technology, it becomes clear that the challenge faced in delivering
the tripling goal is not evenly distributed (Figure 9). The unprecedented acceleration in solar
PV capacity additions in 2023, and the expected continued increase in 2024, mean that current
expectations are that solar PV is likely to hit the level needed under the tripling goal by 2030 of
around 5.5 TW.

However, this cannot be said for any of the other renewable power technologies.

28
 Tripling renewable power by 2030: The crucial role
of the G7

Both onshore and offshore wind capacity additions look set to fall well short of what is needed globally
by 2030 to hit the tripling goal. The same is true for all other renewable power technologies (e.g.
bioenergy for power, concentrating solar power, geothermal, hydropower and marine/ocean power).

Figure 9 C
 urrent expectations of global cumulative renewable power capacity to 2030 compared to the
tripling goal by technology, 2022-2030

Tripling goal, current expectations Surplus/deficit relative

of deployment and surplus/deficit to tripling goal

5 000 500

4 000
0
Tripling goal
3 000
-500
GW

GW
2 000
Current
expectations -1 000
1 000

-1 500
0
30
-212
Deficit -571
-1 000 -2 000

-1 501

2022
2023

2025

2027

2029
2026

2028

2030
2024
2022

2022

2022

2022
2030

2030

2030

2030
2026
2028

2026
2028

2026
2028

2026
2028
2024

2024

2024

2024

Solar PV Wind onshore Wind offshore Other RE

Solar PV Wind onshore

Wind offshore Hydropower

Bioenergy Geothermal

CSP Ocean/tidal/wave

Based on: (BNEF, 2023a, 2024a; IRENA, 2023d; SolarPower Europe, 2023; WindEurope, 2024; Wood Mackenzie, 2024).
Note: The tripling pathway is based on a fixed, simple compound average growth rate needed to increase the capacity of each
technology from its base in 2022 to the 2030 tripling goal value. It is therefore only indicative of one possible pathway.

A number of points of interest can be taken from these trends:

• The rapid acceleration of solar PV deployment in 2023 is potentially putting solar PV above
the curve required for the tripling goal over the next few years.

• This demonstrates solar PV’s ability to rapidly expand supply chains, up to and potentially
beyond the needs of the tripling goal,11 when growth expectations are clear to industry.

This holds at least in the short term, given that the ongoing profitability of the supply chain remains a critical question mark
11 

that will only be resolved in the coming years. Historically, the PV supply chain has innovated itself into what it hoped was a
more profitable business environment, by continuously expanding scale of production, manufacturing improvements and more
advanced cell architectures with higher efficiency. It remains to be seen whether this is still tenable given the massive recent
expansion in supply chain capacity. Much will depend on demand growth over the next 2-3 years.

29
TRIPLING RENEWABLE POWER BY 2030: THE ROLE OF THE G7 IN TURNING TARGETS INTO ACTION

• The slowing in the growth in annual new solar PV capacity additions, however, results in the
earlier “surplus” rapidly eroding by 2030.

• The fact that solar PV is the only major technology with rapidly accelerating deployment
masks the fact that, for the moment, all of the other technologies are not seeing the right
policy settings to scale quickly enough.

Indeed, in every year between 2022 and 2030, none of the non-solar PV renewable power generation
technologies are expected to deliver on the needed increase in new annual capacity additions. The
growth in total installed capacity for these technologies remains linear, not exponential. The deficit
between the needed pathway to 2030 and actual deployment therefore grows inexorably every
year. This is particularly true for onshore wind, where current expectations are that policies will likely
deliver just 32% of the necessary new capacity additions over 2022 levels required, leaving onshore
wind in 2030 at just half of the needed total cumulative installed capacity for the tripling goal.

For offshore wind, current expectations are that cumulative installed capacity will grow to 282 GW
by 2030, from 63 GW at the end of 2022. This impressive, 4.5-fold increase in cumulative installed
capacity by 2030, however, hides an only slightly less serious situation for offshore wind, given its
lower starting point. These expectations suggest that only half of the needed new capacity will be
added by 2030 relative to what is required for the tripling goal, leaving global cumulative capacity
at only 57% of what is needed.

Although “other renewable” power capacity addition needs are lower in capacity terms than for
solar and wind power in the tripling goal, the generally higher capacity factors of these technologies
mean that they are vital to delivering the necessary electricity required under the tripling goal. Here,
again, expectations are that deployment will not accelerate quickly enough to meet the requirement
under the tripling goal by 2030, with a deficit of around 571 GW opening up by 2030.

One goal: Two major delivery risks

Figure 9 highlights two key issues that pose major delivery risks to achieving the tripling goal by
2030. The first challenge is that current policies are not anticipated to drive sufficient acceleration
of the new capacity additions of renewable power to 2030. By 2030, current expectations are that
we will remain 2 260 GW below the target.

But the concern is not just missing the GW target for the tripling goal; it is also the imbalance in
projected growth. Over the period 2022 to 2030, the 1.5°C pathway calls for around 57% of all new
added capacity to come from solar PV, while in 2023 it was 74%. This imbalance in today’s new
capacity addition trends is the second challenge.

The first challenge is, in and of itself, significant. The gap of 2 250 GW to the tripling goal expected
today for 2030 means missing the goal by one-fifth, as only 71% of the needed new capacity additions
are expected to be delivered by 2030. It is not too late to correct course and to adapt existing
policies and introduce new ones to ensure that the target is still reached, but time is not on our side.

30
 Tripling renewable power by 2030: The crucial role
of the G7

To illustrate this, it is worth examining the dynamic that responding only slowly to correct for
the expected low deployment growth to 2030, relative to a tripling pledge pathway, has on the
world’s ability to deliver on the tripling goal by 2030. Figure 10 presents a generic technology
pathway to illustrate the challenge. In this scenario, new annual capacity additions from current
policy settings are expected to remain systematically below a tripling pathway based on an average
compound growth rate. The additional lines on the chart indicate the change in average annual
capacity additions that would have to occur with every year’s delay in accelerating deployment
above current expectations.

Figure 10 G
 eneric pathways to align annual new capacity additions with the tripling pledge pathway

1 500

1 000
Pathways if time to rejoin 1.5°C
pathway is postponed
by +1 years
GW/year

500

0
2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030
1.5°C Forecast

As can be seen in this generic example, the impact is not dramatic if a rapid adjustment is made.
After one year’s delay, the annual new capacity additions needed in 2030 are only 4% above the
tripling pledge pathway – which is already well above expectations – but this increases to 10%
above after two years delay, 19% after three, 35% after four, 60% after five, etc. The longer the
delay, the more pressure there is on every actor in the ecosystem required to deliver on the goal,
and the less time to correct errors or policies that do not deliver as expected. This would likely lead
to rapidly mounting delivery pressure and possibly to an exponential increase in the risk of missing
the targets. It can therefore be seen that acting early to adjust upward the rate of new capacity
additions will make achieving the tripling pledge much more likely.

31
TRIPLING RENEWABLE POWER BY 2030: THE ROLE OF THE G7 IN TURNING TARGETS INTO ACTION

Given that the tripling goal is derived from the 1.5°C pathway in the World Energy Transitions Outlook
(IRENA, 2023a), there are two challenges. Firstly, if the world is short of the goal in gigawatt-terms,
the goal will clearly be missed in terms of the capacity and electricity generation that needs to be
satisfied from renewables in 2030 to maintain that pathway. However, the second problem is more
subtle. We can achieve the tripling goal in terms of power capacity, but still fail in getting onto
a 1.5°C pathway if solar delivers more than anticipated and other renewable power technologies
deliver less than in the 1.5°C pathway.

This is because solar PV has a lower capacity factor the other renewable technologies. If the world
relies more on solar PV to hit the goal, the tripling goal can easily become a quadrupling goal to
deliver the same amount of electricity generated by the mix in Figure 1. For instance, to hit the
terawatt hour (TWh) goal for 2030 implicit in the tripling pledge, every “missed” GW of onshore
wind requires at least 1.8 GW of solar PV, every missed GW of offshore wind requires 2.4 GW of
solar PV, and every missed GW of bioenergy requires 3.4 GW of solar PV.12

Figure 11 presents this dual challenge facing delivery of the tripling pledge by 2030. Current
expectations for the deployment of renewable power capacity by 2030 suggest that the world will
not add the 7.8 TW necessary to reach the tripling goal of just over 11 TW; rather, it will add only
around 71% (5.5 TW) of the new capacity needed, falling short of the goal by around about 2.2 TW.
Given that other technologies have higher capacity factors than solar PV, the mix of capacity will
only add 59% (10 319 TWh) of the needed generation increase over 2022 of 17 575 TWh by 2030,
with total renewable generation reaching around 20 100 TWh in 2030. This is a quarter below the
implied value required of 27 358 TWh global generation from all renewable sources in 2030.

Around 70% of the “missing” TWh is due to the lower capacity deployment than required, with
30% stemming from the lower weighted-average capacity factor of the capacity expected to be
deployed by 2030, given that only solar PV is currently expected to hit its target.

This analysis is based on the scenario results in the World Energy Transitions Outlook (IRENA, 2023b).
12 

32
 Tripling renewable power by 2030: The crucial role
of the G7

Figure 11 G
 lobal electricity generation under the tripling goal compared to current expectations, 2030

12 000 12 000

10 000 -20% 10 000

8 000 8 000
GW

GW
6 000 6 000

4 000 4 000

2 000 2 000

0 0
Forecast 1.5°C GW needed at 2023 mix

25 000 25 000

-25%
20 000 20 000

15 000 15 000
TWh

TWh
10 000 10 000

5 000 5 000

0 0
Forecast 1.5°C GW needed at 2023 mix

Ocean/tidal/wave CSP Geothermal Bioenergy Hydropower (excl. pumped)

Wind offshore Wind onshore Solar PV

Based on: (BNEF, 2023a, 2024a; IRENA, 2023c; SolarPower Europe, 2023; WindEurope, 2024; Wood Mackenzie, 2024).

Figure 11 also includes on the right-hand side an example of where the underlying electricity
generation goal of the tripling pledge is met, with new capacity added to 2030 matching the shares
seen in 2023 for new capacity additions. In this scenario, the goal is met by adding not 7.8 TW
between 2022 and 2030 as in the tripling pledge’s original formulation, but 9.1 TW (1.3 TW more).
In this scenario, onshore wind capacity additions are 2 TW, just 0.2 TW below what was expected
in the tripling pledge.

However, all other technologies, except solar PV, are well below their anticipated new capacity
additions. New capacity additions between 2022 and 2023 for offshore wind are half of what was
envisaged in the tripling pledge. The gap is closed by proportionately more GW of solar PV, with
new capacity additions between 2022 and 2030 increasing from 4.4 TW in the original tripling
pledge formulation, to 6.7 TW (a cumulative total of 7.7 TW installed at the end of 2030) and a total
cumulative installed capacity reaching 12.5 TW, 12% higher than was envisaged.

33
TRIPLING RENEWABLE POWER BY 2030: THE ROLE OF THE G7 IN TURNING TARGETS INTO ACTION

This would transform the tripling goal from a 3.3-fold increase in renewable power generation
capacity between 2022 and 2030, into a 3.7-fold increase. Solar PV would now provide 31% more
electricity generation than was planned in the tripling pledge, while other renewables and wind
power would provide less than anticipated. The generation from solar PV in 2030 in this example
would reach 43% of the total, compared to 31% in the 1.5°C pathway consistent with the tripling
goal presented in Figure 1. In this case, cumulative installed solar PV would reach 7.7 TW in 2030,
2.2 TW higher than the 5.5 TW in the 1.5°C pathway presented in Figure 1. This alternative pathway
is not inherently 'sub-optimal', as many pathways to the tripling goal are possible, when considering
the capacity target and the implied generation that supports a 1.5°C pathway. However, it might
present significantly different challenges for the electricity system in some countries.

The previous example assumes stakeholders adjust policy settings to ensure that all technologies
exceed current expectations for deployment to 2030, albeit falling short of what is presented in
Figure 1 for the tripling goal, with the exception of solar PV. Meeting the tripling target with current
expectations for deployment of all renewable technologies, except solar PV, would require even
more solar PV to be deployed.

In either case, this would require additional policy efforts to account for the higher share of solar
PV In generation. It would probably necessitate additional efforts to accelerate the ability of the
electricity system to manage higher shares of variable renewables. This is because the lower
contribution of concentrating solar power, bioenergy for power, geothermal, hydropower would
mean less clean flexibility options on the grid; while the complementarity of wind power and solar
PV in many countries helps to reduce the needed grid expansion and flexibility needs. For onshore
and offshore wind, the complementarity with solar PV over days, weeks, months and seasons helps
to reduce variability, while the firm, dispatchable renewables help reduce additional flexibility needs
significantly.

A pathway to the tripling goal that relies more heavily on solar PV would therefore likely necessitate
bringing forward investments in grids, electricity storage, demand-side management and other
supply-side flexibility options.

©Ralf Geithe/Shutterstock.com, ©Photographer Lili/Shutterstock.com and ©Vasily Gureev/Shutterstock.com

34
2. DELIVERING ON THE TRIPLING
PLEDGE: KEY ENABLERS
2.1 Introduction

The tripling pledge is ambitious, but also technically and economically feasible, and would provide
a range of co-benefits and improved outcomes for the environment, electricity access, energy
security and the economy. The world has the tools available to deliver on the energy transition, in
terms of both technologies and policy levers.

However, it is an ambitious goal for a reason: the world is not currently on track to deliver an energy
transition that aligns with the Paris Agreement goals. The twin goals of tripling renewable power
generation capacity by 2030 and doubling the rate of energy efficiency improvement can change
that. This will, however, require efforts by all stakeholders to get the key enabling frameworks right,
given that today’s policy settings are not set to deliver the required growth in deployment.

What is clear is that greater ambition and stronger collective action are urgently required to
accelerate progress and to ensure that the world quickly pivots onto a pathway that will meet the
tripling pledge. The example of 2023, and in particular the acceleration in solar PV deployment,
shows what can be achieved in the right circumstances.

Policy makers and all stakeholders now need to work together to urgently ensure that policies,
regulations, market structures, infrastructure, support instruments and financing are all rapidly
aligned with delivering on the tripling target.

The key action areas discussed in the report Tripling renewable power and doubling energy efficiency
by 2030: Crucial steps to 1.5°C (COP28 Presidency, IRENA and GRA, 2023), include:

• Modernising and expanding physical energy infrastructure.

• Improving power system operations and ensuring that flexibility grows with the penetration
of solar and wind power.

• Adapting or expanding existing policies and regulatory frameworks to facilitate the rapid
growth in renewable power that is needed.

• Allocating sufficient funds and ensuring policies align to generate a significant increase in
public and private financing flows, at reasonable cost, into the power sector, especially in the
global South.

• Building resilient supply chains, scaling up the necessary workforces and ensuring that they
have the skills required.

35
TRIPLING RENEWABLE POWER BY 2030: THE ROLE OF THE G7 IN TURNING TARGETS INTO ACTION

This is not an exhaustive list and a wide range of barriers exist that may impede the rapid growth
in new renewable capacity additions required to meet the tripling goal. Figure 12 highlights many
of these other additional factors. Although outside the scope of this report, the range of barriers
presented in Figure 12 all need to be addressed to a greater or lesser extent, depending on national
circumstances in order to deliver on the tripling goal and many represent areas where IRENA has
long established programmes of work.

Figure 12 K
 ey areas where enabling frameworks are needed to address the barriers to achieving the
tripling of renewable power capacity by 2030

Permitting/cumbersome
Workforce skills/availability
environmental regulations

Lack of citizen participation Grids (connection and

transmission)
Barriers to tripling
Inequitable transitions
renewable energy
capacity Cost of finance/availability

Outdated governance
structures
Social acceptance/license
Inadequate energy
planning/co-ordination
Regulatory barriers
Power system operation

Policy settings
Lack of progress in
electrification

Profitability
Supply chains

Ownership structures Market design

Finally, for the tripling pledge to be successful, it will need to be a just and inclusive pathway, given
that if EMDEs are left behind, they will not deliver the gigawatts needed for the goal. In this context,
international collaboration and the leadership that the G7 can play in this area will be vital.

Given the challenges identified in the previous chapter, the present chapter focuses on four key
areas that urgently need to be addressed to deliver on the tripling target: grid expansion and
flexibility needs, financing, energy storage and workforce development and skills.

36
 Delivering on the tripling pledge: Key enablers

2.2 Grid expansion and increasing flexibility needs

With the acceleration in the deployment of renewable power needed to meet the tripling pledge,
wind and solar power will begin to dominate an increasing number of electricity systems. This will
require enhancements to – and expansion of – current power grid systems (both transmission and
distribution networks), and the modernisation and upgrading of power system operations.

As has been documented for a number of years, investments in the electricity grid have lagged in
comparison to investments in renewable power capacity. In 2023, investments in electricity grids
and flexibility sources to integrate higher shares of solar and wind power were USD 368 billion,
around half of the USD 720 billion on average required each and every year between 2024 and
2030 (inclusive) (IRENA, 2024c).

This is not just a concern about how much new capacity the grid can effectively distribute.
Uncertainty around grid access and around the level of local grid constraints that can lead to the
curtailment of a power project’s generation increases the project risk, raises the cost of capital and
may also lead to developers postponing investment decisions for renewable power projects.

Grid modernisation, digitalisation and expansion must speed up

In a number of markets, this lagging investment in grid infrastructure is already slowing the
deployment of renewable power projects, or may soon do so. For instance, in the United States,
the surge in project development plans for solar and wind power meant that more than 1 200 GW
of solar and wind had entered interconnection queues by the end of 2022; however, the time
span between entering the interconnection queue and starting commercial operation increased
to five years, compared to three years in 2015 and under two years in 2008 (Rand et al., 2023).
By the end of 2023, the total had risen to 1 432 GW of standalone wind and solar in the queue
(Rand et al., 2024). A significant amount of this capacity won’t be built, but the growing trend
suggests that an increasing amount will be completed over time.

In the United Kingdom, the volume of grid connection applications has grown ten-fold in just five
years, consisting almost entirely of renewable power and storage requests (Department for Energy
Security & Net Zero and Ofgem, 2023). Currently, only 14% of projects receive the grid connection
date agreed with the transmission system operator, with the rest receiving a delay of, on average,
five years.

37
TRIPLING RENEWABLE POWER BY 2030: THE ROLE OF THE G7 IN TURNING TARGETS INTO ACTION

Other signs of the chronic underinvestment in grids are also appearing, as curtailment of existing
renewable power projects is starting to rise in a range of markets (Figure 13). It is important to
note that, not all curtailment should be considered bad – there can be economic reasons for why
solar and wind projects self-curtail, including negative wholesale power prices if they are exposed
to them. However, curtailment due to grid congestion is increasingly the result of a combination of
poor spatial planning, grid expansion delays, and market or regulatory failures to allow for a future
electricity system dominated by low-cost solar and wind power. These issues need to be addressed
urgently.

For instance, in Germany, in 2014, around 1.2% of renewable electricity was curtailed (Figure 13), but
by 2019, this had risen to 2.8% and in 2022 to 3.3% (Bundesnetzagentur, 2016, 2019, 2023). Much of
this is attributable to onshore wind in the north of the country that is waiting for new transmission
lines to connect to southern demand centres.

Spain and Portugal provide contrasting examples, given that both countries have similar mechanisms
for dealing with grid constraints. In Portugal, curtailment has risen from a low of around 0.2% in
2021 to 0.4% in 2023, while in Spain it rose around 0.3% in 2021, to represent 1% of total solar and
wind generation.

In the United Kingdom, where virtually all curtailment is for wind power, the curtailment rate rose
from 3% in 2015 to 6% in 2020, and was 5% in 2023 (Staffell et al., 2021, 2024). This is because grid
expansion that would allow much of this wind power to be transmitted from Scotland to the south
is not yet in place, even as new capacity is being added in Scotland.

©WINDCOLORS/Shutterstock.com

38
 Delivering on the tripling pledge: Key enablers

Figure 13 Curtailment rates for solar, wind and variable renewable electricity by country, 2015-2023

Wind
United
United
All Great Ireland Northern United States
Denmark Germany Italy Spain
Kingdom
States China
Ireland Britain (EirGrid) Ireland ERCOT
(CAISO)
(Texas)
16%

14%

12%
Curtailment rate

10%

8%

6%

4%

2%

0
2015
2020

2015
2020

2015
2020

2015
2020

2015
2020

2015
2020

2015
2020

2015
2020

2015
2020

2015
2020

2015
2020

2015
2020
Solar
United States United States
Germany Japan-EPCO China
(CAISO) ERCOT (Texas)
10%

8%
Curtailment rate

6%

4%

2%

0
2015

2020

2015

2020

2015

2020

2015

2020

2015

2020

Wind and solar

United United
Germany Italy Portugal Spain Japan
Kingdom Australia Chile Ireland States China
(CAISO)
16%
14%
12%
Curtailment rate

10%
8%
6%
4%
2%
0
2015

2020

2015

2020

2015

2020

2015

2020

2015

2020

2015

2020

2015

2020

2015

2020

2015

2020

2015

2020

2015

2020

Sources: (Bundesnetzagentur, 2016, 2019, 2023; Staffell et al., 2021, 2024; Yasuda et al., 2022; IEA, 2023a; Castro, 2024).

39
TRIPLING RENEWABLE POWER BY 2030: THE ROLE OF THE G7 IN TURNING TARGETS INTO ACTION

Figure 14 shows the trends in Germany for grid investment by the commercially owned transmission
system operators, the line transmission line length added, renewable power generation and
percentage curtailment. Although investment has increased in recent years, it has not yet borne
fruit in terms of avoiding an increase in GWh curtailed, albeit the curtailment rate has stayed
broadly the same. Progress on the expansion of new transmission line length construction has been
disappointing, particularly for the portion that is being directed by the state, which is now seven
years behind schedule (Bundesrechnungshof, 2024). Crucially, it is proving difficult to expand the
grid at the rate envisaged to meet the targets for solar and wind that pre-dated the significant
increase in ambition since the onset of the crisis in Ukraine.

Figure 14 G
 rid curtailment of solar and wind, transmission network investment and planned and
completed line length for Germany, 2015-2022

Curtailment Investment
3.4% 14 054
8 000 14 000

Planned
12 000

6 000
10 000
GWh or 2023 EUR million

3.5%
8 000
3 935 7 700
km

4 000
6 000

1 916 4 000
2 000
2 459
Completed
2 000

900
0 0
2015

2022
2023

2015

2022
2023

2022
2020

2020

2020
2019

2021

2019

2021

2019

2021
2018

2018

2018
2016

2016

2016
2017

2017

2017
2014

2014

2014

Source: (Bundesnetzagentur, 2016, 2019, 2023).

As can be seen in Figure 14, an important dynamic is that as solar and wind generation grows, even
if curtailment rates still stay the same, the volume and potential value of lost electricity grows. In
some cases, this makes investment in additional grid capacity extremely economic. For instance, in
the United Kingdom, the additional investment cost of doubling the planned increase in the North-
South transmission capacity additions to 2030 from Scotland to England might be paid back in just
two years, given the value of curtailments at that time (Sani, 2023).

In terms of investment in grids, the trends across the G7 countries are mixed (Figure 15). In Germany,
Italy and the United States, investment grew in real terms between 2015 and 2022 by 15%, 59% and
22% respectively. The United Kingdom has seen its annual investments fall in real terms, by 24%
between 2015 and 2022, and France by 11%. Japan’s investment in 2022 was 6% higher than in 2015,
but 11% lower than in 2016. The data for Canada cover only three years, so do not allow an analysis
over the same period as the other countries.

40
 Delivering on the tripling pledge: Key enablers

Overall, the total investment in grids has increased. However, with incomplete data by year and
country, it is difficult to be categorical about the overall trend in investments in the G7. It appears
likely that these have grown between 2015 and 2022, perhaps in the order of around 15%. Yet,
as previously discussed, this appears to have been insufficient to match the growth in renewable
power, with indicators for curtailment and grid connection wait times all suggesting that serious
underfunding issues remain.

Although significant time lags often occur between annual investment expenditures and new
transmission (or, to a lesser extent, distribution) capacities coming online, which cloud the analysis,
it appears that investment is well below what is needed. Annual average investment in the G7 in
transmission and distribution grids needs to ensure that the tripling goal is met. Globally, annual
investments in grids need to double, on average, over the period 2022-2030. To what extent this
holds true for the G7 will largely depend on growth in other areas of the transition, notably in
relation to investments in electricity system flexibility, and national circumstances. Slower progress
in these areas would require even higher investments in grids.

Figure 15 I nvestment by G7 countries in transmission and distribution grids, 2015-2022

United
Canada Fracne Germany Italy Japan United States
Kingdom
12 90

80
10
70

8 60
2023 USD billion

2023 USD billion

50
6
40

4 30

20
2
10

0 0
2022

2022

2022

2022

2022

2022

2022
2020

2020

2020

2020

2020

2020

2020
2018

2018

2018

2018

2018

2018

2018
2016

2016

2016

2016

2016

2016

2016

Transmission Distribution Transmission and distribution

Source: (Bundesnetzagentur, 2016, 2019, 2023; Enedis, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023; RTE, 2021; Électricité
Canada, 2022; IEA, 2023b).

41
TRIPLING RENEWABLE POWER BY 2030: THE ROLE OF THE G7 IN TURNING TARGETS INTO ACTION

The lag in the development of grid infrastructure as renewable power deployment has accelerated
over the last two years, not to mention the increased plans and market outlook for renewable power
since the onset of the crisis in Ukraine, represents a warning sign about countries’ ability to absorb
the required capacity for the tripling pledge. Recent analysis suggests that in Europe, there is a
compounding problem. In addition to today’s slow roll-out of new transmission capacity relative
to planned needs, those planned needs by transmission system operators now look to be too low.

The analysis in Figure 16 suggests that, for many European markets at least, current market
expectations for combined solar and wind capacity in 2030 now exceed TSO plans by a significant
margin (Cremona and Rosslowe, 2024). Of the 26 countries analysed, 11 of those had TSO plans based
on outdated targets (Cremona et al., 2024). But the situation is more worrisome than this, given the
increase in expected solar and wind deployment resulting from the fossil fuel price crisis of 2022.

Of the countries shown in Figure 14, only Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands have TSO plans that
do not currently underestimate the solar and wind capacity that is likely to be connected to their
networks in 2030. Overall, across all 26 European countries analysed, grid plans for 2030 are designed
with more than 200 GW less than current expectations. Combined with the slow-paced grid expansion
and increasing delays, this situation will likely either lead to a growth in curtailment beyond what is
economically optimal, or result in unacceptable delays to grid connection windows for projects.

Figure 16 A
 nticipated solar and wind capacity in transmission system operators’ expansion plans
compared to current expectations of actual deployment in 2030

175

150

125
Current deployment
100
GW

75 TSO plans

50

25

0
Netherlands
Denmark

Romania
Portugal
Belgium

Sweden
Finland
Austria

Greece

Poland
Ireland
France

Spain
Italy
Deficit/surplus vs TSO plans

-10

-20

-30

-40

Source: (Cremona and Rosslowe, 2024).

42
 Delivering on the tripling pledge: Key enablers

Good planning for the energy transition is therefore essential. Countries need an expansion plan for
the grid that not only matches current market expectations for solar and wind growth, but also has
options in place to meet the tripling goal. Crucially, this has to be delivered “on time” or in advance
of the renewable power growth.

Uncertainty around grid capacity and connection availability is not just an issue for the delivery of
renewable electricity when it is needed. If the current situation is not promptly addressed, it will
result in higher project costs and financing costs, reducing the benefits of the energy transition to
consumers.

Notably, the world does not have good indicators to track grid modernisation, expansion and
operation. The metrics that are available are relatively crude and most commonly cover the overall
investment value in transmission and distribution networks and the line length added. These metrics
are not sufficient, in and of themselves, to understand if they are meaningfully expanding the ability
of the grid to handle higher volumes of wind and solar generation. The complexity of the interaction
between physical grid infrastructure, grid operation and electricity system flexibility all play a role
in that ability. It is therefore clear that it is challenging to identify a robust set of metrics, but more
needs to be done.

Curtailment trends are a lagging indicator of the adequacy of the grid capability to handle higher
shares of solar and wind. But lagging indicators are not ideal and curtailment data may not separate
out economic curtailment from that resulting from grid constraints. Moreover, given the urgency of
the tripling goal, countries need to correct course before problems arise. In that respect, lagging
indicators may hinder delivering the tripling goal. This means that the quality and comprehensiveness
of transmission and distribution operators’ plans for the future are crucial, and they need to take
into account a holistic approach to the energy transition. They also need to align – not just with
stated goals, but with market expectations for growth in renewable power.

Recommendations for the G7 countries and others to address these issues include:

• Countries need to closely integrate their power planning and grid expansion, modernisation
and enhancement programmes, in order to ensure alignment and that grid capacity is matched
to planned capacity growth. Crucially, this needs to also align with market expectations for
deployment, when they exceed country, which is increasingly the norm.

• Introduce an integrated approach to grid planning that looks at the combined benefits of
solar, wind and storage, as well as demand-side resources (see below for more details).

• Measures should be taken to consult all relevant stakeholders to identify opportunities to

address interconnection backlogs (projects awaiting connection to the grid) where they exit
and identify what is required to accelerate grid connection for these projects and the role of
each stakeholder in delivering on this plan.

43
TRIPLING RENEWABLE POWER BY 2030: THE ROLE OF THE G7 IN TURNING TARGETS INTO ACTION

• Permitting and approval processes need to be streamlined for new grid capacity and
inter-connections between countries, while the co-location of storage at existing grid
interconnections could help boost existing inter-connection capabilities.

• Grid operation and management needs to continuously evolve to adapt to higher shares of
solar and wind power. This must encompass technical operation, market rules or design, and
regulatory bottlenecks to greater flexibility that can unlock higher penetration of solar and
wind power.

• Support the investment of EMDEs in grid infrastructure, with financing and capacity building.

However, more radical action is required, given the slow progress in a number of G7 countries on
delivering the grid modernisation and expansion to support targets that are still below the tripling
pledge pathway. G7 member states should continue to work to achieve the targets that their
transmission and distribution operators have already set. But they must also act urgently to plug
the likely gap in the grid capability to absorb and transmit to end users the renewable capacity and
generation required to meet the tripling goal. This can be achieved, but it will require a focus on a
range of grid-enhancing technologies that can be deployed faster than line extensions, as well as
tapping into greater demand-side flexibility and energy storage than was previously anticipated
for 2030.

These additional investments in grid-enhancing technologies, demand-side flexibility and energy

storage are not “instead of” total grid and flexibility measures planned in the 1.5°C pathway. But
they will contribute to securing these investments in time to solve the almost certain problem
that grid modernisation and expansion will fall short of not just existing targets, but the additional
efforts required to reach the tripling goal in 2030 based on today's trends.

G7 countries should therefore consider implementing policies and support programmes designed
to urgently scale up these technologies and the regulatory and market changes required to ensure
that they have viable business models. Specifically, the G7 should target:

• Polices and measures to incentivise an accelerated deployment of grid-scale electricity

storage to 2030. This will be discussed in more detail later in this report.

• Rapidly increasing the contribution of demand-side flexibility to help manage solar and wind
generation peaks and troughs. The growing share of end users that are becoming energy
producers as well as consumers, when combined with the increased penetration of storage
(thermal, stationary battery storage and electric vehicles) and electrification (e.g. heat pumps),
as well as the low cost of networked digital controls, means opportunities to tap significant
levels of flexibilityare increasingly being missed are increasingly being missed.

44
 Delivering on the tripling pledge: Key enablers

• A rapid scale-up of so-called grid-enhancing technologies – which are a mix of advanced

controls, sensors and advanced optimisation tools – allows for greater electricity flows across
the grid than without their implementation.13 These have often been seen as a cheaper
alternative to grid expansion, but with the likelihood of grid expansion plans falling short of
needs by 2030 in the tripling pathway, they could be crucial to ensuring that the tripling goal
can be met during the period grids are expanded.

As the G7 faces the challenge of meeting the tripling goal, it is important to acknowledge the
potential barriers to delivering on the goal. In the case of grids, this means that the second dimension
of a solution’s suitability – its timeline and ease of implementation – starts to become of paramount
importance.

2.3 Financing investment in renewable power and electricity

infrastructure

The world has sufficient capital available to finance the energy transition many times over. However,
lending institutions and businesses will only lend to or invest in projects where the risk-reward profile
meets certain minima. The challenge is therefore multi-faceted, as it is about both the volume of
bankable projects and the finance that is available to them at an affordable rate.

Successful policies to support the financing needs of the tripling pledge will therefore need to
address three key metrics: 1) the demand (bankable project volumes), 2) the supply or availability
of sufficient funds in different markets for different technologies and 3) the cost of finance.

Lack of progress, to a greater or lesser extent by market and technology, on these three core
issues at least partially explains why current expectations are that renewable power deployment
will not accelerate rapidly enough to meet the tripling target by 2030. This is especially true in
many EMDEs. For instance, around 85% of global renewable energy investment in 2022 benefited
less than 50% of the world’s population, and Sub-Saharan Africa received less than 1% of the global
total in the past two years (IRENA and CPI, 2023). As a result, renewable power capacity additions
in Africa were just 2% of the new capacity added in 2022 (IRENA, 2023e).

In 2023, total investments in renewable power generation were estimated to have increased 28%
from 2022 levels, to reach USD 570 billion. However, even allowing for the falling costs of renewable
power, this still falls well short of the required USD 1 550 billion annual investment needed each and
every year on average to 2030 (IRENA, 2024c). Just as crucially, current annual average investment
in grids and flexibility, at around USD 368 billion in 2023, remains around half of what is needed
each and every year to 2030.

See IRENA (2019, 2020, 2022) and US DOE (2022) for more details on grid-enhancing technologies, their characteristics and their
13 

applications.

45
TRIPLING RENEWABLE POWER BY 2030: THE ROLE OF THE G7 IN TURNING TARGETS INTO ACTION

Low-cost finance for the energy transition is on hold

Inflation started to tick upwards as the world emerged from the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic
in 2021, due to the unleashing of supply chain issues and pent-up demand as the world returned
to more “normal” times. The crisis in Ukraine, however, sent energy and commodity costs soaring,
driving a spike in consumer price inflation of an annualised value of 9% in the United States in
June 2022 and of 10.9% in the EU in September 2022. Compared to target values for inflation that
typically platform at annualised rates of around 2% in most advanced economies, central banks
reacted more or less rapidly to raise lending rates and try to reduce inflation.

This has raised the cost of capital for all economic actors, including renewable power project
developers. The yields on United States 10-year Treasury Bonds, often used as a benchmark for the
“risk-free” rate of capital, more than doubled in 2022 to 2.95%, from an average of 1.44% in 2021
(OECD, 2024). With inflation still running high, the situation in 2023 saw continued increases with
yields on US 10-year bonds continuing to rise in 2023, peaking at 4.8% in October 2023, before
finally starting to ease towards the end of 2023. However, overall, they averaged another 1% higher
than in 2022 at around 4%. Thus, the risk-free rate of capital benchmark increased by a factor of
2.7 overall. The situation was exacerbated by the macroeconomic damage of high energy prices and
consumer inflation, which led to an increase in country risk premiums in many markets, especially
EMDEs, as their fiscal and macroeconomic situations deteriorated.

This uptick in financing base rates has a significant impact on the cost of the energy transition. The
cost of capital is a very important driver of the total electricity cost, given that, apart from bioenergy
for power, renewable power technologies have no fuel costs. For instance, for a representative
solar PV project or onshore wind project, the total levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) increases
by around 80% if the cost of capital is 10% rather than 2%. Given the paramount importance of
access to low-cost finance in achieving the required mobilisation of capital to support the energy
transition, understanding the current cost of capital and its drivers is very important for policy
makers, energy researchers and energy modellers.

Figure 17 represents the weighted-average cost of capital (WACC) for solar PV in 100 countries
based on the survey results of IRENA, ETH Zurich and IEA Wind (IRENA, 2023e) and the updated
benchmark model calibrated from the survey results where data gaps exist.14 The increase in the
WACC for utility-scale solar PV between 2022 and 2024 can clearly be seen. In advanced economies,
this increase has been relatively uniform; however, many EMDEs have seen disproportionate increases
as the lingering COVID-19 supply chain issues, highly inflationary environment, and deteriorating
macroeconomic and fiscal conditions have contributed to increases in the WACC of more than 7%
in some countries in the space of two years.

The WACC benchmark model is updated annually based on changes in country risk premium and risk-free interest rates, as well as
14 

additional survey data, when available.

46
 Delivering on the tripling pledge: Key enablers

The impact for projects commissioned in 2023 was significant, with an increase of around 1.0 to
1.2 percentage points in Europe and 1.0 to 1.6 percentage points in Africa. However, the real impact
of the recent increases in the cost of finance will be felt in 2024, with a further increase in the WACC
in Europe of between 0.8 and as much as 3.3 percentage points, although for most markets it
will be in the range 0.8 to 1.2 percentage points. In Africa, the situation is much more serious: the
WACC of projects commissioned in 2024 could be as much as 6.5 percentage points higher than
in 2022, although in countries with more stable macroeconomic and fiscal outlooks, the increase is
restricted to as little as 1.5 percentage points over 2023.

Figure 17 N
 ominal, post-tax weighted-average cost of capital for utility-scale solar PV projects by country,
2022-2024

Solar PV
25%

20%
WACC (nominal, post-tax)

15%

10%

0
Venezuela
Cuba
Argentina
Sri Lanka
Myanmar
Ghana
Pakistan
Iraq
Ethiopia
Nicaragua
Kenya
Mongolia
Uganda
El Salvador
Jamaica
Azerbaijan
Burkina Faso
Viet Nam
Brazil
Indonesia
Saudi Arabia
Dominican Republic
United Arab Emirates
Croatia
Latvia
Malaysia
South Africa
Romania
Cyprus
Bulgaria
Finland
Singapore
Namibia
Panama
Spain
Poland
Canada
United States
Greece
Czech Republic
Israel
Chile
Austria
Luxembourg
China
France
United Kingdom
Switzerland
Netherlands

2022 2023 2024

Figure 18 shows the change in the nominal, post-tax WACC for onshore wind between 2022 and
2024. In many markets, solar PV technology risk premiums are lower than for onshore wind, although
this does vary by market depending on the level of maturity of the local market for each technology.
For instance, there is virtually no difference in the cost of capital for solar PV and onshore wind in
Germany, but in Finland onshore wind can attract a much lower cost of capital than solar PV. The
trend in the increase in the cost of capital is, however, clear over the two years across all markets.

47
TRIPLING RENEWABLE POWER BY 2030: THE ROLE OF THE G7 IN TURNING TARGETS INTO ACTION

Figure 18 N
 ominal, post-tax weighted-average cost of capital for onshore wind projects by country, 2022
and 2024

Onshore wind for 2022

3.0%

4.7%
22.7% 4.2%
10.5% 7.6%

6.6%

6.2% 4.6%
8.3%

Onshore wind for 2024

4.8%

6.6%
26.5% 6.1%
16.3% 10.1%

9.1%
8.4%
6.4%
11.1%

WACC (nominal, post-tax)

0% 30%

Disclaimer: T
 hese maps are provided for illustration purposes only. Boundaries and names shown on this map do not imply any
endorsement or acceptance by IRENA.

48
 Delivering on the tripling pledge: Key enablers

Overall, based on the share of deployment, the global WACC is estimated to have fallen significantly
for projects commissioned between 2010 and 2022, but increased in 2023 and is set to increase
again in 2024 (Table 1). What emerges from the changes in both the cost of capital by country and
the relative changes in deployment is that, for the global average at least, the impact of higher
financing costs is muted. However, given the increase in the cost of capital across the board in 2022
and 2023, the continued increase in the global WACC by technology – depending on new capacity
addition shares by country in 2024 – will continue.

Table 1 G
 lobal weighted-average cost of capital for solar PV, concentrating solar power, and onshore and
offshore wind power by year of commissioning, 2010 to 2023

Year Onshore wind Solar PV Offshore wind Solar thermal

2010 7.8% 7.5% 7.5% 7.5%

2011 7.4% 7.3% 7.1% 7.1%

2012 7.0% 6.8% 6.6% 7.0%

2013 6.6% 6.4% 6.1% 7.7%

2014 6.3% 6.2% 5.9% 7.0%

2015 5.7% 5.7% 5.4% 7.4%

2016 5.3% 5.5% 5.4% 7.8%

2017 5.1% 5.0% 4.8% 7.2%

2018 4.5% 5.0% 4.0% 6.6%

2019 4.1% 5.0% 4.1% 5.6%

2020 3.4% 3.9% 4.6% 5.0%

2021 3.3% 3.7% 4.5% 5.0%

2022 2.9% 3.6% 4.1% 5.0%

2023 3.5% 3.8% 5.2% n.a.

Note: This is the weighted-average cost of capital by technology based on the year of commissioning, assuming a one-year lag
for full pass-through of changes in the WACC to account for the time between financial investment decision (FID) and
commissioning. However, this is likely to be a poor indicator for offshore wind, and IRENA is currently undertaking analysis
to identify if it is feasible to assign project-specific WACC assumptions based on data on the FID in order to improve the
accuracy of this metric.

In order to scale up the finance flows to renewable power projects at the lowest cost of capital, it is
necessary to properly identify for individual countries and technologies the specific risk drivers that
are adding significant premiums. When this mapping is done, the most significant drivers for cost
premium can be targeted with appropriate policies to mitigate these risks, reduce the cost of capital
and crowd-in greater shares of private finance. By doing so, projects can achieve viable economics,
allowing them to meet debt service obligations and the expectations of equity investors, while
charging a lower price for power.

49
TRIPLING RENEWABLE POWER BY 2030: THE ROLE OF THE G7 IN TURNING TARGETS INTO ACTION

Table 2 provides a summary of the range of risks that impact the cost of finance for renewable
power generation projects, as well as some of the potential tools available to mitigate these risks to
the greatest extent possible to drive down the cost of capital. Addressing these risks in EMDEs will
be key to unlocking the larger volumes required for the tripling goal, at the least cost.

Table 2 K
 ey investment risks and mitigation tools to address them

Risk Definition Risk-mitigation tools

Primarily driven by fiscal policy, indebtedness,

International guarantees,
perceived and real corruption, fiscal policy management
Country risk political risk insurance, partial
performance, political risk/instability (e.g. war, civil
premium risk/credit guarantees, export
disturbance, currency inconvertibility, breach of contract,
credit guarantees.
expropriation, non-honouring of sovereignty obligations).
Government guarantees,
Risks associated with changing or volatile foreign
currency risk hedging (swap,
exchange rates that adversely affect the value of
forward), loans in local currency
Currency risk investments. Risks arise when there is a mismatch
or covered in the power
between assets (revenues) and liabilities (debt
purchase agreement, partial
financing).
credit guarantees.
Risks associated with changes in legal or regulatory Government guarantees,
policies that have significant, adverse impacts on potentially backed by partial
Policy or
project development or implementation (e.g. incentive risk/credit guarantees, export
regulatory risk
programmes, taxes, interconnection regulations, credit guarantees and political
permitting processes). risk insurance.
Government guarantees,
political risk insurance, partial
Credit and default risk by a counterparty in a financial
Counterparty risk/credit guarantees, export
transaction. For renewable energy investments, this
risk (power off- credit guarantees, liquidity
category is related to the risk of default or non-payment
taker risk) facility, options and termination
by the power off-taker, typically the electric utility.
clauses in power purchase
agreements.
Grid and Risks associated with limitations in interconnection, grid Government guarantees,
transmission management and transmission infrastructure (including liquidity guarantees, natural
risk curtailment risk). disaster insurance.
Government or the off-taker can
Risk that permits required by the project, for example
take on some of the permitting
environmental authorisation, building permits,
Permitting risks responsibilities and risks if the
generation licences, are not provided at all or in a timely
site is provided or the country is
manner.
using specific corridors or zones.
Risks associated with uncertainties around the Government guarantees and
availability, future price and/or supply of the renewable grants, convertible grants,
Resource risk
energy resource (e.g. resource risks related to geothermal exploration
geothermal projects). insurance.
Technology Risks associated with use of nascent technology or
Specialised insurance products.
risk unexperienced labour deploying it.
Risk that a borrower is unable to re-finance the Larger supply of capital market
Re-financing outstanding loan during the life of the project owing to instruments for re-financing
risk inadequate loan terms (high cost of borrowing, mismatch (e.g. green bonds/funds), partial
between loan maturity and lifetime of the asset). credit guarantees.

50
 Delivering on the tripling pledge: Key enablers

Risk that a natural disaster will affect the ability of

Natural Property, casualty and specialty
a counterparty to fulfil its obligations (e.g. produce
disasters insurance.
power, make payments).
Risk that land ownership of the project site is unclear,
Site provision
or that private land ownership is not allowed (e.g. in Government can provide sites,
and preparation
Ethiopia). It also refers to the risk that a government- although with some limitations.
risk
provided site is poorly prepared and/or selected.
Government can require project
Risks that there are social and/or environmental
Social and sites to be prepared in line
factors associated with the particular project site that
environmental with international social and
can delay the project, increase costs and/or stop
risks environmental performance
implementation.
standards.
Risk that projects will face delays in receiving Policies to localise value chains
Supply chain
equipment or that costs will increase during and indexation to inflation and
risks
development stage. increasing costs.

Source: (IRENA, 2016 and IRENA and AfDB, 2022).

Understanding risk and the impact on capital availability and cost

The role of public funds will, however, remain essential in many EMDCs given the breadth and
depth of the challenges they face in attracting private finance. Development finance institutions,
in particular, have an important role to play in supporting renewable power investments in EMDEs
by offering liquidity support, partial risk guarantees in lieu of sovereign guarantees and security
packages, hard currency denomination of power purchase agreements or exchange rate hedges,
among other solutions. Targeted support like this is critical for the bankability of projects in EMDEs,
which may otherwise be faced with myriad sizeable risks, ranging from selling to financially
challenged power off-takers to challenges with grid access. All this means that in many cases, for
investors – and in particular lenders – to be comfortable with the risks involved, additional credit
enhancement and risk-mitigation cover is required for the most challenging markets.

The three risks that have the greatest impact on the cost of capital for renewable power generation
projects in EMDEs are the country risk, the currency risk (for projects that do not receive hard
currency denominated offtake contracts) and the off-taker risk. Providing a one-stop-shop for
addressing these elements would go a long way to unlocking funds to renewable projects at a
lower cost than today.

Overall, a range of solutions will be required to drive greater financing at low cost to support the
tripling goal in EMDEs. Notably, EMDEs are made up of very diverse set of countries with very
different drivers of overall risk. Many already have well-established and liquid financing markets
for renewable power projects because of a range of policy and regulatory settings adapted to their
individual circumstances. In other countries, especially the least developed ones, the role of public
financing and international assistance is pre-eminent, and almost no infrastructure, in the energy
sector or elsewhere in the economy, relies solely on private financing.

51
TRIPLING RENEWABLE POWER BY 2030: THE ROLE OF THE G7 IN TURNING TARGETS INTO ACTION

Therefore, it is key to unbundle EMDEs into different contexts, to understand how their unique
characteristics and circumstances shape different types of risks, the resultant cost of financing
and the actions needed to support renewable energy deployment. This can help identify whether
tailored solutions can help mobilise affordable financing, or whether there is a need for a higher
degree of public intervention including public finance.

Addressing many of the risk factors in Table 2 will require more than just best practice in terms of
policy, regulation, energy planning and target setting. It will be crucial to increase the volume of
public funds available to support growth in renewable power deployment in EMDEs. These funds
will always be in short supply, so it is crucial to ensure that they are targeted, increasingly smartly,
towards the de-risking of the major risk drivers of investments, through policies and instruments that
make these projects bankable to private investors. Where this is not always possible, the increased
use of blended finance can be considered, which encourages the sharing of risks and know-how
among transacting parties through the pooling of public and private capital.

Policies that ensure that financing institutions and investors assess renewable power projects and
energy storage projects (whether standalone or in a hybrid configuration) with a comprehensive
definition of investment risk – which includes the environmental and social externalities of fossil fuel
use (including the macroeconomic costs of periodic fossil fuel price shocks) – would go a long way
to helping align financial decision making with broader public and social goals.

Increased public funding is possible, despite tight fiscal situations. With significant public capital
flows still going to fossil fuels – including through direct investments, subsidies, export credit
guarantees, and concessional financing – these flows can be redirected to renewable energy and
supportive infrastructure. New investments in grids and transmission modernisation projects will
also be needed, because investment in these areas is lagging as well (as discussed in the next
section).

The G7, and other advanced economies, should actively engage in climate finance initiatives that
help deliver a more equitable distribution of investments into renewable power and supporting
infrastructure.

Finally, policy and regulatory certainty is essential to helping reduce a range of risk factors for
renewable energy projects. This needs to be complemented by clear targets that give investors the
confidence to invest not just in individual projects, but the supply chains and skilled workforces that
are needed to deliver cost-competitive projects.

52
 Delivering on the tripling pledge: Key enablers

2.4 Electricity storage to 2030: Growing importance and required

grid upgrades

For decades, electricity storage has been an important tool to minimise overall electricity system
costs – mainly using pumped hydropower storage systems – by providing ancillary services to
the electricity market and energy arbitrage (e.g. storing electricity at times of relative surplus, for
instance overnight, for release when wholesale prices or generating costs are higher). With the
electricity system transitioning from one where large baseload thermal power plants provided the
least-cost volume of electricity to one where solar and wind now fulfil that role, the need to upgrade
and modernise grids and the role of electricity storage are increasing in importance.

As with other parts of the energy transition, electricity storage – and energy storage in general
– is undergoing rapid technological innovation, industrialisation of new technologies and cost
reductions. Today, an increasing number of energy storage solutions are available, including electro-
chemical storage (notably lithium-ion batteries, but also flow batteries and other chemistries),
thermal energy storage (which employs rocks, bricks or molten salts to store heat), mechanical
technologies (employing compressed air, liquid air or gravitational potential) and chemical storage
(storing energy in chemical bonds such as hydrogen or its derivatives). These are being added to
the mainstay of electricity storage today, pumped hydropower, at a rapid pace.

Each of these technologies potentially has a role to play in providing flexibility, security of supply
and economic services – either at the level of an individual household, a commercial entity or at
the utility scale. These storage technologies can be coupled directly, increasingly, with solar PV15
or wind (as with hybrid generation assets) or as a standalone asset, or in optimising the use of
distribution or transmission assets and systems.

Currently, pumped hydropower dominates the electricity storage landscape, with around 140 GW
of capacity and 9 TWh of electricity storage (IHA, n.d.; IRENA, 2023d). However, stationary battery
storage capacity is expected to grow rapidly to 2030, globally. Installed capacity could grow from
around 86 GW (192 GWh) to 782 GW (2 013 GWh) in 2030 (BNEF, 2024b).

Battery storage is increasingly being used to accelerate solar and wind deployment in the face of
challenges related to the slow processing of grid connection requests, the uncertainty around future
curtailment or grid congestion regimes, and to manage grid congestion as grid modernisation,
renewal and expansion gathers pace. For instance, 98% of the proposed solar PV projects in
the interconnection queue in the US state of California are now hybrid solar-storage projects
(Rand et al., 2023), while so-called grid-booster storage projects are starting to be trialled or
commercially deployed in Brazil, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania and the United States (Murray, 2024).

45% of the projects, by capacity, in the interconnection queue in the United States are solar-storage hybrids, where the storage
15 

technology is almost always a battery system (Rand et al., 2023).

53
TRIPLING RENEWABLE POWER BY 2030: THE ROLE OF THE G7 IN TURNING TARGETS INTO ACTION

Figure 19 Projected battery storage growth and required pumped hydropower capacity growth to 2030

Total installed storage capacity Storage GWh added

(GW) (2023-2030)
800 2 000
783

700 1 750

600 1 500

500 1 250

GWh
GW

400 1 000 +2 013

319
300 750 +1 469

200 500

141
100 86
250

0 0
2023 2030 Pumped hydro Battery storage

Source: (BNEF, 2024b; Global Data, 2023; IRENA, 2023c, 2024a).

Battery storage growth is therefore accelerating. Figure 19 shows the projected increase in pumped
hydropower storage consistent with the tripling goal, as well as current expectations of battery
storage capacity growth between 2023 and 2030. The total installed power capacity of battery
storage is projected to increase 9-fold from 86 GW in 2023 to 782 GW in 2030, while pumped hydro
storage needs to grow 2.3-fold from around 141 GW in 2023 to 319 GW in 2030.

The relationship between pumped hydropower capacity and storage duration is, in theory, not
fixed, but was in the past designed around a maximum of 12 hours16 for daily cycling to make the
most of excess thermal or nuclear production overnight, as well as to provide ancillary grid services.
There are exceptions to this, where small pumped hydro facilities have been added to very large
reservoirs, and storage can run into the hundreds or even thousands of hours.17

Lithium-ion battery storage is currently limited to around four hours maximum duration, but other
long-duration storage technologies are emerging, such as flow batteries. However, by 2030 lithium-
ion batteries will dominate. As a result, although battery storage power capacity grows by 564 GW
to 2030, it adds just 1.7 TWh of storage, while the needed increase in pumped hydropower of
178 GW would add in the order of 1.5 TWh.

These systems were designed for daily cycling, so storage duration was typically 12 hours or less. Of systems with less than
16 

24 hours of storage, the simple average of existing facilities is around 8 hours (IHA, 2024).
The current data suggest that 23 facilities globally have in excess of 100 hours of storage representing 5.3 GW of capacity and
17 

4.9 TWh of storage; those with more than 1 000 hours of storage represent only 263 MW of power (IHA, 2024).

54
 Delivering on the tripling pledge: Key enablers

Increasingly, though, as the energy transition accelerates to 2030 the system will need long-
duration energy storage, as well as a combination of other flexibility measures (bioenergy for
power, geothermal, reservoir storage hydropower, demand-side management, interconnectors,
etc.). For instance, analysis for the United Kingdom suggests that by 2035, periods of oversupply of
renewables will last up to 96 hours or more, while shortfalls tail off rapidly after around 48 hours,
but small shortfalls can persist for up to 96 hours. The optimal solution therefore requires careful
modelling, given that small shortfalls of several days might still be manageable with the projected
large quantities of battery storage coming online – if efficiently co-ordinated and incentivised.
However, it is increasingly clear that significant flexibility or long-duration energy storage will be
needed to meet security-of-supply requirements if this is to be provided cleanly.

Notably, in terms of the economic incentives to deploy long-duration energy storage, interconnectors
and demand-side flexibility periods of oversupply represent much larger volumes and durations
across all durations, but especially for periods above 48 hours.

Given the solar PV deployment is accelerating, the implication this has for grid operation, as well
as the increasing likelihood that grid investments are going to lag behind the rate needed for
the tripling pledge is that more storage will be needed sooner compared to current plans. It is
recommended that G7 countries:

• Undertake flexibility studies – in consultation with all key stakeholders – to identify the role
of electricity storage in 2030 in integrating the solar and wind power of the tripling pledge
and minimising system costs. These studies should take into account the tripling goal needs,
as well the current evolution of renewable deployment and the likely actual rate of grid
modernisation, expansion and refurbishment to identify any gaps.

• Identify policies, market and regulatory changes to support a variety of business models, and
to close any necessary financial gaps (especially where electricity system benefits are not
flowing to project owners) to drive diverse storage solutions to market, including:

• Stand-alone grid-connected electricity storage projects for grid congestion relief and
energy arbitrage.

• Electricity storage projects as “virtual” transmission capacity to displace in time solar and
wind generation to periods where the lines are not constrained.18

• The increased contribution of existing and new behind-the-meter small-scale electricity

storage systems to grid flexibility, in terms of energy arbitrage and absorbing solar and
wind electricity when grid locations are constrained. This will often require new business
models that incentivise the aggregation of large numbers of small assets and reward their
participation appropriately, as well as adjustments to market rules and grid regulations to
facilitate their participation at the least cost possible.

There are still relatively few such projects, but plans are growing. For instance, TenneT and TransnetBW are both planning
18 

“Netzbooster” storage facilities at vulnerable locations on their grids (Murray, 2022).

55
TRIPLING RENEWABLE POWER BY 2030: THE ROLE OF THE G7 IN TURNING TARGETS INTO ACTION

• Identify electricity storage targets for 2030, with a carve-out for long-duration energy storage
given the ambitious nature of the tripling goal. This identification of targets should take into
account national circumstances, the likely grid expansion, evolution in peak demand, existing
and planned alternative flexibility sources, and interconnectors. The G7 could consider a
proportional storage target:

• The G7 collectively commits to adding at least 1 to 2 megawatt (MW), depending on

national circumstances, of electricity storage capacity for every 10 MW of renewable power
capacity added.

• Integrate the storage targets into existing support programmes and/or develop storage-
specific support packages, regulatory and market rule changes to facilitate the delivery of the
target and the full utilisation of the storage assets once built.

• Track progress towards the storage targets on an annual basis, consulting with all key
stakeholders around upcoming bottlenecks through to 2030 in order to anticipate and course-
correct before targets are put in jeopardy due to changing economic, technology, market or
policy challenges.

A skilled workforce to support the tripling of renewable power

Delivering on the tripling goal by 2030 also depends on ensuring the scaling of the skilled
workforce required. This spans the whole supply chain, from the labour force in the manufacturing
of key equipment (e.g. PV modules, wind turbine nacelles, battery cells, etc.) through the myriad
of products and services in the supply chain required to complete renewable power, electricity
transmission and electricity storage projects, not to forget the O&M workforce required to maintain
these systems. This requires:

• putting in place educational and skill-building programmes from the vocational level to
university courses;

• devising strategies to reskill and upskill people (including those who currently work in fossil
fuels but have applicable and transferable expertise), offering assistance to workers who need
new and sometimes costly re-certifications;

• facilitating access to STEM training as well as to viable career paths for women in many
traditionally male-centric industries;

• co-ordinating between the evolving needs of the renewable energy industry and the offerings
of educational and training sector (which requires anticipating and modelling future skills
needs); and

• ensuring that occupational safety and health in the workplace are integral considerations
(which also requires adequate labour rights such as collective bargaining processes, as well
as labour policies to ensure decent jobs).

56
 Delivering on the tripling pledge: Key enablers

Another important point is that educational programmes and skill training, labour market measures,
social protection and regional economic development efforts are essential to overcome potential
misalignments between job losses in fossil fuels and gains in renewables during the energy transition.

These misalignments could be of a temporal nature (occurring when job losses precede job gains on
a large scale). They could be spatial (where new jobs emerge in communities, regions, or countries
other than those that experience job loss). There may also be educational misalignments when the
skill levels or occupational patterns are not transferable between old and new energy jobs. Finally,
sectoral misalignments can occur where value chains shift from one set of required inputs to another.

Action in a number of key policy areas can ensure adequate levels of skill training and education,
including efforts to keep up with emerging skill requirements; implementation of national skill
standards; labour market interventions to facilitate skills transitioning; and investing in transition
training funds.

Skills delivery can and must take place in a variety of ways. Figure 20 highlights some of the key
pathways, including on-the-job training (workers can be hired with no specialist qualifications
and trained on-site by employers); vocational training (this includes both vocational courses and
specialised short courses); university degrees (that is, bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral level degrees)
and apprenticeships (qualifications delivered in partnership between education institutions and
employers). Some roles also require a government-regulated professional licensure, for example, in
the case of professional engineers and skilled trades persons.

Figure 20 Projected skill-delivery pathways

ON-THE-JOB TRAINING
Workers hired with no specialist qualifications
and trained on-site by employers

APPRENTICESHIPS
VOCATIONAL TRAINING
Multi-year training and qualification SKILL DELIVERY
Instructional programmes that
delivered in partnership between PATHWAYS
build skills for a specific trade
educational institutions and employers

HIGHER EDUCATION
Degree level qualifications at either bachelor’s,
master’s, or doctoral levels

Source: (IRENA et al., 2021).

57
TRIPLING RENEWABLE POWER BY 2030: THE ROLE OF THE G7 IN TURNING TARGETS INTO ACTION

An analysis of the skill delivery pathways for 35 key occupations in the solar PV sector, for example,
shows that only 16 of these jobs require a university degree with the remainder of skills built through
either on-the-job training, vocational training and/or apprenticeships (IRENA and ILO, 2021).

Labour market interventions can facilitate the transition of workers from the fossil fuel power sector to
renewables. These include adequate employment services (matching jobs with qualified applicants;
facilitating on- and off-job training; and implementing job safety nets), along with measures to
facilitate labour mobility. In addition to the identification of transferable skills, governments will also
need to dedicate funds to the reorientation and reskilling of the workforce. The costs of securing
formal recognition and credentialing of existing relevant skills can be steep and are often borne by
workers who may not be able to afford them.

The rapid innovation taking place within the energy sector brings with it an evolving set of skills
requirements. Efforts to avoid skills shortages are of vital importance. The tripling goal makes this
an imperative and the G7 should consider committing to:

• Undertaking a rapid assessment of potential misalignments in skills and work force availability
across the entire ecosystem required to deliver on the tripling goal.

• Introducing or expanding programmes to align education and vocational training programmes

to deliver the skilled workforce required for the tripling goal.

• Introducing or expanding existing plans and programmes designed to manage the potential
misalignment in the availability of skilled workforces for the tripling goal by location, skillset
and in time.

• Working to co-ordinate skills-related efforts of universities and vocational schools, employers,

and labour representatives, and reconciling the objectives of these stakeholders as much as
possible.

©anatoliy_gleb/Shutterstock.com

58
3 THE VITAL ROLE OF INTERNATIONAL
COLLABORATION: HOW THE G7
CAN HAVE A GLOBAL IMPACT

The preceding chapters have highlighted both the challenges and opportunities around delivering
on the tripling goal for the G7 as a group, and for the world as a whole. While the goal is eminently
achievable, it is challenging. The current expectation is that, from 2026, the trends in new capacity
addition growth are likely to fall short of what is needed to deliver – if policies or the current
economic outlook does not change.

The G7 plays a crucial role in providing leadership and demonstrating that it is moving quickly to
deliver its share of the tripling goal. However, many emerging market and developing economies
(EMDEs) will not be able to deliver their share of the goal without international support and that of
international organisations. This includes organisations that deliver financing and capacity building,
facilitate peer-to-peer learning, and provide knowledge and insights on everything from renewable
power procurement to policy design, market structures and regulatory regimes.

Based on the preceding chapters, the G7 countries should consider the following recommendations
on how to leverage their existing international collaboration programmes, as well as where to target
new initiatives in order to support the global delivery of the tripling goal. These are not exhaustive
but focus on the key points raised in this report, and further areas of focus are certainly not excluded.
The key recommendations are:

1. Assist countries in developing target-setting processes that align with the tripling goal, given
national circumstances and starting points. Assist countries in identifying their own key
progress metrics and in developing the capability to collect and report on progress on an
annual basis.

2. Work with countries to help them identify opportunities for a step-change in renewable
power capacity growth, by mapping the key bottlenecks to rapid growth. In many countries,
this could be supporting “high-impact” projects in grids, system operation, market, policy and
regulatory reform.

3. Support inclusive and co-ordinated regional grid planning, interconnector projects and
grid expansion/modernisation plans to unlock greater scope for renewable power capacity
deployment.

4. Support EMDEs in identifying near-term opportunities for renewable electricity demand-pull,

both directly (e.g. in encouraging corporate/industry procurement of renewable power) and
indirectly via increased electrification, or in the energy transition in hard-to-abate sectors,
from green steel or chemical production to sustainable aviation fuels.

59
TRIPLING RENEWABLE POWER BY 2030: THE ROLE OF THE G7 IN TURNING TARGETS INTO ACTION

5. Support EMDEs with the process of taking stock of successful support policies for renewable
energy deployment and sharing peer-to-peer knowledge on what has been successful in what
context. Just as importantly, share knowledge on how and why support policies have failed in
different contexts.

6. Fully integrate targets, energy planning and grid planning with support policies for renewable
power deployment to provide greater certainty to industry on the volume of capacity by
technology needed and when. This will reduce project risks and hence the cost of capital,
support investment in skills and workforces, and strengthen the local and regional supply
chains necessary for low-cost projects.

7. Support efforts to increase the ability of domestic renewable power project promoters to
develop large, high-quality bankable project proposal pipelines in order to ensure an adequate
supply of projects in EMDEs that can deliver capacity when the rest of the policy, regulatory
and financing landscape is ready to deliver.

8. Increase the volume of public funds available for financing renewable power generation
projects and use them strategically to reduce finance costs for projects, crowd-in greater
private sector financing and in reduced time frames, by:

a. Working with stakeholders to develop standardised financing products that are easy to
access and process and that address the three main cost drivers of the high weighted-
average cost of capital in EMDEs: country risk, exchange rate risk and offtake risk.

b. Prioritise “high-impact” public financing that can leverage greater renewable capacity roll-
out, whether that is in grid expansion, transmission system operator management and
assessment capabilities, storage solutions, etc.

9. Support EMDEs with best practices in grid expansion and modernisation planning, as well as
in grid operation with high shares of variable renewables.

10. Support grid flexibility assessments and projected flexibility needs for 2030, identifying
bottlenecks and potential technology, market operation or regulatory solutions. Special
attention should be paid to the opportunity to introduce greater demand-side flexibility and
the role of energy storage, including long duration energy storage.

11. Support the development of EMDEs’ Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), which
today are often narrowly focused or rely on outdated data, due a number of constraints that
these countries face. Fully aligning NDCs with the outcomes of target setting (see point 1
above) would create new momentum. Crucially, it should support countries’ ability to broaden
the focus of NDCs beyond renewable power to take into account the enabling measures
necessary to deliver on the tripling goal (e.g. market and regulatory reform, grid expansion,
system operation, demand-pull, electrification).

60
 The vital role of international collaboration: How the G7 can have a global impact

12. Support EMDEs in accelerating the deployment of wind power technology, in particular
onshore wind. The current trend in deployment is not enough to achieve the tripling goal.
Activities could focus on:

• Implementing best practices in permitting and environmental regulation, noting the

importance of aligning this with the activities in point 3 above.

• The G7 should consider working with the global South to build more resilient and
diversified supply chains – helping to create multilateral markets with secured off-takers
for new producers of technologies based on fair trade agreements. Recent difficulties in
the sector are in part due to supply chain issues, and broader international collaboration
and co-ordination on supply chains would result in lower costs, higher energy security and
healthier supply chains ready to support further growth.

©Animaflora PicsStock/Shutterstock.com

61
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