British Petroleum, has recently reported in its 65th annual review that solar generation increased by 33% in 2015, becoming the world’s fastest growing source of energy. China overtook Germany and the US in solar generation, becoming the world’s largest generator of Solar Energy.
“Solar power generation grew by 32.6%, with China (+69.7%), the US (+41.8%) and Japan (+58.6%) accounting for the largest increases,” read a section of BP’s official report.
Back in March, the government of China announced their plans to triple their solar power capacity by 2020, in an urgent attempt to reduce carbon emissions. The head of National Energy Administration Nur Bekri then stated that the country is committed in adding 15 to 20 gigawatts of photovoltaic power annually until 2020.
The result of the Chinese government’s high-priority strategy was immediately evident, enabling China to reach 43.2 gigawatts in solar capacity by December of 2015.
The active campaigns to increase solar capacity in China and other countries including Chile, Germany and the US have significantly affected energy use worldwide, which resulted in renewable energy sources reaching 2.8% of global energy consumption.
“Renewable energy used in power generation grew by 15.2%, slightly below the 10-year average growth of 15.9% but a record increment (+213 terawatt-hours), which was roughly equal to all of the increase in global power generation. Renewables accounted for 6.7% of global power generation,” states BP.
Chile has also seen an explosive growth of its solar industry, which has grown to a point where investors are losing money to maintain solar ventures. Bloomberg recently reported that Chile is giving solar energy away for free, because of its growing supply of the renewable energy.
Bob Dudley, Group chief executive of BP further stated in the report that the gain of renewable sources of energy, most notably solar energy, “was at the expense of coal,” which plunged to its lowest level since 2005, an 11-year low usage and demand rate.
“The US shale revolution has unlocked huge swathes of oil and gas resources. And rapid technological gains have supported strong growth in renewable energy, led by wind and solar power.
These advances meant that, despite the weakness of energy demand, oil, natural gas and renewable energy all recorded solid growth in 2015. Their gain was at the expense of coal, which saw its largest fall on record, taking its share within primary energy to its lowest level since 2005,”