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According to recently compiled data, seven countries now generate almost all of their electricity from renewable energy.
Albania, Bhutan, Nepal, Paraguay, Iceland, Ethiopia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo generated over 99.7% of their electricity from geothermal, hydro, solar, or wind power sources.
Data from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and International Energy Agency (IEA) also indicates that an additional 40 countries produced at least 50% of the electricity from renewables in 2021 and 2022.
The data was published by Stanford University Professor Mark Jacobson. He said, “We don’t need miracle technologies. We need to stop emissions by electrifying everything and providing the electricity with Wind, Water, and Solar (WWS), which includes onshore wind, solar PV, concentrated solar power, geothermal electricity, small hydroelectricity, and large hydroelectricity.”
He also noted that other countries, like Germany, were capable of running entirely on electricity generated from renewable energy for short periods of time.
According to IEA figures from January, the UK sourced 41.5% of its electricity from renewables in 2022, marking a 10.5% increase from the previous year. Meanwhile, renewable energy technologies in Scotland produced electricity equivalent to 113% of the country's total consumption in 2022.
While wind power dominated Scotland's electricity generation, researchers anticipate that solar energy will become the predominant source of global electricity in the coming decades.
In recent years, there has been significant progress in improving the efficiency rates of solar cells, largely driven by the so-called 'miracle material' perovskite.
Also, falling commercial costs have led scientists at the University of Exeter and University College London to claim last year that solar energy has reached an "irreversible tipping point," predicting it will become the world’s primary source of energy by 2050.
The 2023 paper, published in the journal Nature Communications, pointed out that "Due to technological trajectories set in motion by past policy, a global irreversible solar tipping point may have passed where solar energy gradually comes to dominate global electricity markets, without any further climate policies."
It also emphasized that "Solar energy is the most widely available energy resource on Earth, and its economic attractiveness is improving fast in a cycle of increasing investments."
