TY - JOUR
T1 - National growth dynamics of wind and solar power compared to the growth required for global climate targets
AU - Cherp, Aleh
AU - Vinichenko, Vadim
AU - Tosun, Jale
AU - Gordon, Joel A.
AU - Jewell, Jessica
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.
PY - 2021/7
Y1 - 2021/7
N2 - Climate mitigation scenarios envision considerable growth of wind and solar power, but scholars disagree on how this growth compares with historical trends. Here we fit growth models to wind and solar trajectories to identify countries in which growth has already stabilized after the initial acceleration. National growth has followed S-curves to reach maximum annual rates of 0.8% (interquartile range of 0.6–1.1%) of the total electricity supply for onshore wind and 0.6% (0.4–0.9%) for solar. In comparison, one-half of 1.5 °C-compatible scenarios envision global growth of wind power above 1.3% and of solar power above 1.4%, while one-quarter of these scenarios envision global growth of solar above 3.3% per year. Replicating or exceeding the fastest national growth globally may be challenging because, so far, countries that introduced wind and solar power later have not achieved higher maximum growth rates, despite their generally speedier progression through the technology adoption cycle.
AB - Climate mitigation scenarios envision considerable growth of wind and solar power, but scholars disagree on how this growth compares with historical trends. Here we fit growth models to wind and solar trajectories to identify countries in which growth has already stabilized after the initial acceleration. National growth has followed S-curves to reach maximum annual rates of 0.8% (interquartile range of 0.6–1.1%) of the total electricity supply for onshore wind and 0.6% (0.4–0.9%) for solar. In comparison, one-half of 1.5 °C-compatible scenarios envision global growth of wind power above 1.3% and of solar power above 1.4%, while one-quarter of these scenarios envision global growth of solar above 3.3% per year. Replicating or exceeding the fastest national growth globally may be challenging because, so far, countries that introduced wind and solar power later have not achieved higher maximum growth rates, despite their generally speedier progression through the technology adoption cycle.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85111120282&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/s41560-021-00863-0
DO - 10.1038/s41560-021-00863-0
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85111120282
SN - 2058-7546
VL - 6
SP - 742
EP - 754
JO - Nature Energy
JF - Nature Energy
IS - 7
ER -