IRENA: Construction of renewable energy facilities becomes profitable business

Currently, there are approximately 4.5 terawatts of renewable energy (RE) capacity installed worldwide, but to achieve the global target of tripling this figure by 2030, the total installed capacity today needs to reach approximately 11 terawatts, Gauri Singh, Deputy Director General of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), said at the 30th Baku Energy Forum held in Baku, Report informs.

"Last year, about 585 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity were commissioned worldwide. Investments in renewable energy sources also increased by about $100 billion compared to the previous year. At the first glance, an annual increase of 23% seems impressive and significant. But unfortunately, this is not enough - we are still not on the right track," Singh said.

According to Singh, the situation shows that existing technologies allow for the active commissioning of new renewable energy facilities: "At the same time, the cost of energy production in them is significantly lower than the construction of new coal and gas power plants."

He noted that in 96% of cases, energy costs are cheaper due to new BOEM facilities:

"This means that renewable energy is not only ecologically significant but also economically significant. And this has become a profitable business. The transition to renewable energy sources is no longer based solely on arguments to combat climate change. The Azerbaijani translation of this sentence would be as follows. Currently, this movement is driven by market mechanisms and economic benefits, and it is these factors that will ensure its development in the future."

Singh stressed that countries need to make significant investments in the development of electricity networks to achieve their goals of tripling the capacity of their renewable energy facilities: "We must also fulfill the commitments we made at the COP29 conference on energy storage systems."