Hydropower Storage

Hydropower

The Role of Hydropower Storage

Hydropower plays a crucial role in the worldwide electricity landscape. Not only does it presently stand as the primary source of clean energy, but it also offers flexibility to manage the substantial integration of wind and solar power.

While there is a global demand for new hydropower facilities, many regions have already optimized their hydro resources.

In other areas with potential, the associated projects may incur a prohibitively high ecological and social cost.

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Long-Term Trends

Hydropower generation has experienced significant growth
over the past two decades

Over the past two decades, bioenergy generation has seen a substantial increase of 4.5 times, surging from 148 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2000 to 672 TWh in 2022. As a result, the proportion of bioenergy in the global power generation mix has risen from less than 1% in 2000 to 2.4% in 2022. It's worth noting that there was only one year when bioenergy generation declined, which was in 2001 when production fell by 5.5 TWh (-3.7%).

Since then, bioenergy generation has experienced an average annual growth rate of 8%. However, in 2022, the growth rate dropped significantly to 0.8%, mainly due to major producers like Brazil, the United States, and the UK reducing their bioenergy generation.

The growth of bioenergy generation has also slowed since 2015, with a lower average annual growth rate of 4.9%. Bioenergy's share in the global power mix has increased by only 0.4 percentage points since 2015, going from 2% to 2.4% in 2022.

Among the G20 countries, the UK has the highest share of bioenergy in its domestic power mix. In 2000, its share was a mere 1.1%, but by 2015, it had risen to 8.5%. Although the increase has slowed, the UK's share of bioenergy reached 11% in 2022. Brazil and Germany have similar shares, consistently maintaining a share of around 8% since 2015.