← All news

IRENA released 2022 Capacity Statistics : hydropower (almost) takes it all !

Monday, 11 April 2022

Today, 11th of April 2022,  the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) released its 2022 version of the 'Renewable Capacity Statistics' report. 

This version presents 2021 figures for 222 countries/areas and six big technologies (hydro, marine, wind, solar, bio and geothermal).

Source: IRENA

Overall, here are the main points of the full report (can be found here) :

  • Renewable Capacity raised by 257 GW in 2021 (+ 9.16% points compared to 2020);
  • Hydropower now accounts for 40% of the total installed capacities;
  • The biggest capacity increase in 2021 was for Solar (+19%), second was Wind (+13%);
  • Renewable Generation capacities augmented across all regions of the World, more in Asia (+11.9%), North America (+9%), and Europe (+6.4%) : Asia now accounts for 48% of the total installed capacity, Europe 21% and North America 15%;
  • Renewable share of total generation capacity was at 38.3% in 2021 (+1.7 %points compared to 2020)
  • More than 4/5 of new electricity generating capacities come from renewables (see Graph below).

Source : IRENA Highlights, p. 3

All the relevant statistics from this report have been reported within our country analyses : Finland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. For these countries as well as others (Belgium, France, UK, etc.), we are currently updating the 'Data' section, under 'Installed Capacity'.

If you have any questions, do not hesitate to send us an email at leo@greenfact.com