Wind will make up 13.4% of the global energy mix by 2030.

China has been named to be amongst the key drivers of renewable energy development globally, particularly for wind and solar PV, reports data and analytics firm GlobalData.

Wind is expected to make up 13.4% of the global energy mix by 2030, whilst solar PV is expected to represent 16.6%.

Overall, GlobalData expects wind and solar PV technologies to continue to grow during 2021 to 2030 period, with reduced costs encouraging more projects to be set up in the coming years.

The adoption of renewables by countries that had not used these resources before will further drive uptake of wind and solar energy sources globally, they added.

Other key drivers include US and Europe. Latin America is also reportedly sufficiently prepared to take on a crucial role in climate change and renewable power development.

“The rapid growth of renewables across the Latin American region has boosted its efforts in achieving a low-carbon economy and it is expected that this region will see renewables representing 67% of its energy mix by 2030,” the report noted.

Furthermore, technological innovations have led to increased efficiency and decreased costs, thus fostering grid competitiveness of renewables.

“With its competitive pricing and stable policy support, the wind power market is thriving and has achieved grid parity in most countries. Technological advancements have opened the way for more effective and reliable equipment and machinery, hence making wind the fastest-growing energy source across the world,” said Sneha Susan Elias, senior analyst of power at GlobalData.

Modern technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and blockchain are also being adopted by the power industry – especially by utilities and power system companies. They will play an important role in improving demand predictions, generation predictions from non-dispatchable resources such as wind and solar, as well as wholesale price predictions.

“Their role in understanding how changes to one part of the system would affect the system as a whole is also important to reduce the impact of outages and disconnections. In the meanwhile, blockchain is effective for when companies have shared infrastructure,” said Elias. “For example, Electron and EDF have brought peer-to-peer electricity transactions to a block of flats in London that has solar panels, owned by the landlord and installed on the roof,” she added.