BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 24. To achieve net-zero emissions by 2060 in a cost-effective manner, Europe and Central Asia need to ramp up renewable capacities by almost 70 percent by 2030 and more than triple them by 2035 in the power sector, the World Bank said, Trend reports.
In its latest report, the bank expects that solar and wind will lead the way in capacity additions due to their excellent regional potential, although some locations also see an uptick in new hydro and bioenergy.
In the Net Zero 2060 scenario, solar and wind combined share in the region will hit 53 percent by 2040. The increasing variability of solar and wind sources raises significant concerns for ECA governments, particularly in subregions where these sources contribute more than approximately 20-25 percent to the power mix. The EU4 encounters this challenge as early as 2025-30, followed by the Western Balkans and Türkiye before 2035.
According to this model, the renewable share in the power mix rises from 31 percent in 2020 to 44 percent by 2030 and a substantial 84 percent by 2050. The ECA region, on average, produced nearly 30 percent of its power from renewable sources in 2020, with hydropower contributing over 20 percent. However, there's considerable variation across countries, with Albania, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan generating over 90 percent of their power from renewables, while Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Moldova, Kosovo, Belarus, and Turkmenistan generate less than 10 percent.
Despite some progress, solar and wind potential remains largely untapped in most of the region, the WB pointed out. Generation from non-hydro renewable sources (wind, solar PV, bioenergy, and geothermal) surged by more than five-fold between 2010 and 2020, accounting for over 10 percent of total generation in 2020, up from 2.4 percent in 2010. However, as the bank analysts noted, this generation is concentrated in seven countries, including Türkiye, the EU member countries, Kazakhstan, and Serbia, each surpassing 1 TWh in 2020.