Power and Grids

Decarbonizing the global power system is a foundational step toward ensuring that climate commitments are met. More than half of all abatement in the power sector relies on scaling up wind and solar photovoltaic (PV) production. That, in turn, will require deploying increasingly mature flexibility solutions such as battery storage and demand-response technologies – and a significant scale-up of investment in the transmission and distribution networks.

The shift to a clean power system is well on the way thanks to the increased cost-competitiveness of zero-carbon electricity generation technologies and large, established supply chains. Either wind or solar is now the cheapest form of new-build electricity generation in countries accounting for over two-thirds of the world’s population, more than three-quarters of global GDP, and 90% of all electricity generation. It is also now cheaper to build new renewables from scratch than operate existing coal and gas plants in a growing number of markets, including China, India and much of Europe.

The power sector has several well-established and mature zero-carbon technologies; however, support for the deployment of emerging solutions, including those that are still unproven at scale, will be needed if the power sector is to stay on track to net zero. This is because deep decarbonization of the power system cannot be achieved economically with wind, solar and battery storage alone. This includes new sources of flexibility and dispatchable technologies to back up and balance variable renewable generation as the power system decarbonizes and more energy end-use sectors electrify