Analysis: Green energy production needs to increase eightfold to reach climate neutrality by 2050

The production of green enery must increase eightfold to the level of 2021 and annual investment in distributionmust triple to reach, at global level, the climatic neutrality until 2050, shows a PwC analysis, made on the basis of the data of the International Agency for Energy (IEA).In Romania, investment in renewable energy intensified over the last years, but it is much to reaching the agreement in the National Integrated plan in the domain of energy and climatic changes 2021 – 2030 (PNIESC). According to the most ANRE recent data, Romania has a production capacity of 3 GW of wind energy and 1.5 GW of solar energy. According to the present version of PNIESC, adopted on October 2021, Romania proposes that the share of renewable energy until 2030 to get to 30.7% in the final gross consumption of energy until 2030 by using new wind units, photovoltaic and hydroenergy oens, as well as by increasing the number of prosumers. By  the version of Long Term strategy for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions (STL)notified by Romania to the European Commission in April 2023, the share of energy from renewable energy in the gross final consumption at the level of 2030 increases to 36.3%. As a total, through PNIESC 2021-2030, Romania proposed that, between 2021 – 2030 to install additional capacities of 6.9GW renewable sources production capacities.   The amount of investments that Romania can realise through co-financing from the NRDP and the Modernisation Fund exceeds €16 billion, in areas such as renewable energy, coal replacement, green hydrogen production and use, nuclear energy, high efficiency cogeneration, biofuels, energy infrastructure modernisation. The PwC report analysed the gaps that need to be bridged to build a reliable, affordable and green energy system.   Currently, around 80% of primary energy demand is met by hydrocarbons such as oil, natural gas and coal. The remaining 20% is supplied by the electricity sector and already 38% of this is produced by non-CO2 emitting technologies - nuclear, hydro, solar and wind.   In recent years, with the help of subsidy schemes, tax credits and the falling levelised cost of energy, the installation of renewable electricity generation capacity (especially solar and wind) has increased dramatically.