The clean energy transition, in 10 charts

Canary Media’s chart of the week translates crucial data about the clean energy transition into a visual format. Canary thanks Clean Energy Counsel for its support of the column.

Every day, Canary Media documents the clean energy transition with words — and at least once a week, we do it with charts. 

Here are ten from this past year that — by showcasing the rise of EVs, batteries, renewables and more — help to capture where the global energy transition stands, and where it’s headed.

One in five new cars sold this year will be battery-powered

Turn back the clock to 2018: Just about 2 percent of cars sold worldwide were electric vehicles or plug-in hybrids.

In 2024, battery-powered cars could account for 20 percent of all vehicles sold on the planet, per International Energy Agency estimates. That’s a huge change in a short period of time, and an impactful one too: The IEA also forecasted this year that global oil demand will peak at the end of this decade thanks to the rapid rise of EVs.

World could triple renewable energy by decade’s end

Last year, at COP28, more than 100 countries agreed to a big energy transition goal: They’d triple their renewable energy capacity by 2030.

As it stands, the world is not on track to meet that goal — but it’s not too far off. The IEA estimates that between this year and 2030, 5.5 terawatts of renewable energy capacity will be built, more than half of that by China alone.

That’s a staggering number, and nearly enough to make the COP28 target of tripling renewables a reality: If the IEA’s estimate proves accurate, global renewable capacity would grow 2.7 times by 2030.

Solar power is shattering global records

If you’re a regular reader, you know that solar power is breaking records left and right. But the fact that solar’s rise has become predictable doesn’t make it any less remarkable.

In 2023, 428 gigawatts of solar power capacity were installed worldwide. The year before, that number was just 243 GW. The year before that? 175 GW. The pace of growth — and the scale of installation — is such that you might need to see it to believe it. Luckily, we’ve got a chart for that.

Solar and wind overtake fossil fuels on the EU power grid

The global rise of renewables is especially apparent in the European Union, where in the first half of 2024 solar and wind overtook all fossil fuels — that’s coal and gas combined — in terms of electricity generation.

That’s a huge milestone, not only for the region and its climate goals, but for the planet. 

Heavy industry is the world’s biggest decarbonization challenge

The world is making demonstrable — if too slow — progress on slashing emissions from the power and transportation sectors. But the outlook for the biggest global decarbonization challenge is less promising.

Heavy industry — meaning the production of everything from steel to oil and gas — accounts for more planet-warming emissions than any other sector. Some momentum is building around solutions like green steel or mitigating fugitive emissions from oil and gas operations, but according to Rhodium Group research, the world needs a ​“considerable acceleration in policy and innovation” to bend the emissions curve in this sector. 

Most Americans support expanding solar and wind power

As for the U.S. energy transition, here’s a bit of good news: Renewables remain by far the most popular sources of energy among Americans surveyed by Pew Research Center.

But here’s the problem: Support is dropping precipitously among Republicans, who at one point viewed clean energy nearly as favorably as Democrats did. Meanwhile, Republicans are growing fonder of fossil fuels, the survey found. The place where respondents from the two parties are most aligned? Nuclear power.

Almost all new U.S. power plants are carbon-free

These days, when the U.S. builds a new power project, you can go ahead and assume it’s a solar, battery, or wind installation.

Yes, the U.S. is still building some new fossil gas power plants — and yes, utilities nationwide are trying to build a lot more of them — but 97 percent of new capacity set to come online this year is carbon-free, per a U.S. Energy Information Administration report in August.

The U.S. clean energy backlog is getting bigger and bigger

The U.S. may be building a lot of clean energy, but it could be building way more if only the grid could expand quickly enough.

An enormous number of energy projects — 2.6 terawatts’ worth, or an amount roughly double the size of the existing U.S. grid’s capacity — are making their way through the series of steps required to plug into the grid. Almost all of this backlog, known as the interconnection queue, consists of solar, wind, and battery projects.

If the U.S. can figure out how to build transmission lines more rapidly and reform the interconnection process, clean energy will move that much faster. That’s a big if.

The U.S. battery market is on track for its best year yet

The initial data on grid battery installations in the first quarter of the year sent a signal: 2024 would be a breakout year for the maturing clean energy source.

Installations were up 84 percent compared to a year prior, led by battery juggernauts California and Texas, both of which have by now installed enough renewables to make grid batteries a no-brainer. When the full-year data comes in, it’s possible the U.S. will have doubled its grid battery fleet in this year alone. 

Trump’s win could lead to far more planet-warming emissions

The progress the U.S. has made on decarbonization over the last few years, including the country’s seemingly unstoppable pace of clean energy installation, is about to face a major test in the second Trump administration.

Though it remains highly uncertain how exactly Trump and congressional Republicans will aim to water down the Biden administration’s climate policies — most notably the Inflation Reduction Act — it’s certain that the president-elect will weaken rather than strengthen federal climate policy.

In the worst-case scenario, meaning a full repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act, the second Trump administration could cause an extra 4 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide to pour into the atmosphere. Experts think that exact scenario is unlikely, but for now it’s all just informed guesswork. 

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