According to newly compiled data, the seven countries now generate almost all of their electricity from renewable energy sources.
Albania, Bhutan, Nepal, Paraguay, Iceland, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo produced more than 99.7 percent of their electricity using geothermal, hydro, solar or wind energy.
Data from the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) also showed that 40 countries produced at least 50 percent of their electricity from renewable energy technologies in 2021 and 2022 – including 11 European countries.
“We don’t need miracle technologies,” said Mark Jacobson, a Stanford University professor who published the data.
“We need to curb emissions by electrifying everything and providing electricity with wind, water and solar (WWS), including onshore wind, solar photovoltaics, concentrated solar power, geothermal power, small hydro and large hydro.”
Professor Jacobson also said that other countries, such as Germany, were also able to run on 100 percent renewable-generated electricity for short periods of time.
Figures released by the IEA in January show the UK will generate 41.5 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources in 2022 – up 10.5 per cent from a year earlier.
In Scotland, renewable energy technologies could produce the equivalent of 113 percent of the country’s total electricity consumption in 2022.
Claire Mack, chief executive of Scottish Renewables, said at the time, “These record-breaking figures are a major milestone in Scotland’s journey to net-zero, clearly demonstrating the huge potential of our world-class renewable energy resources.”
While wind power dominated Scotland’s electricity generation, researchers predict that solar power will dominate the global electricity supply in the coming decades.
In recent years there has been significant progress in improving the efficiency rates of solar cells, mainly boosted by the so-called ‘miracle material’ perovskite.
Commercial costs have also declined, leading scientists at the University of Exeter and University College London to claim last year that solar energy has reached an “irreversible tipping point”, causing it to become the world’s main source of energy by 2050.
Their 2023 paper, published in the journal nature communicationfound that technological and economic advances mean the transition to clean energy is not only accessible, but inevitable.
“Given the technological trajectories set by past policy, a global irreversible solar tipping point may be passed where solar power gradually comes to dominate global electricity markets, without any further climate policies,” the researchers write in the study.
“Solar energy is the most widely available energy resource on Earth, and its economic attractiveness is rapidly improving amid a growing investment cycle.”
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