IEA is predicting that renewable energy capacity is set to grow a massive 50% over the next five years till 2024 from around 2500 GW now, to 3750 GW by 2024. About 60% of this increase will come from solar power that means almost 150 GW of solar power a year coming from PV. This is a huge jump in growth in RE capacity which will start making up for 30% of power generation by 2024 from around 24% now.

The RE revolution is truly on its way and it is accelerating rapidly given the huge decline in costs of solar PV and wind energy. IEA predicts that solar power costs will fall by another 15%-35% over the next five years which will make it even more competitive with other fossil fuels. Solar power is already very cheap with prices of below 2 cents/kWh regularly being seen in auctions around the world. Dubai recently said that a solar park being built saw a price quote of 1.7 cents/unit which now has become a kind of benchmark. Brazil also saw a very low price in its recent power auction with solar being quoted at the lowest price amongst all other power sources such as hydro, wind, etc.

Rooftop solar is going to become the major growth driver for solar PV and will account for almost 50% of the overall solar growth. With prices of solar becoming lower, rooftop solar is now becoming competitive against grid power in almost all large countries. China will continue to lead the demand growth accounting for 40% of the overall rooftop solar growth with other major countries such as India, USA Japan also making up the other major growth drivers. In India, rooftop solar costs have become much cheaper than the tariffs for commercial, industrial consumers making it eminent sense for people to switch rapidly. Only bureaucratic red tape and cumbersome approval processes have slowed down the growth of rooftop solar. Despite the distribution and government creates hurdles. Rooftop solar is growing by more than 100% year on year in India.

Besides rooftop solar, offshore wind energy is another RE segment that will show rapid growth with falling costs with a recent UK tender showing a below 10 cents/kWh cost. With massive potential, falling costs for offshore wind energy means that it will become another major rapid growth driver for RE globally.