Ember has placed the global electricity demand as rising by 3 per cent in the first half of 2022 compared to the same period last year, with renewables meeting all of this extra demand.

Wind and solar met 77 per cent of this demand growth, and hydro more than met the remainder. In China, the rise in wind and solar generation met 92 per cent of its electricity demand rise; in the US it was 81 percent, while in India it was 23 per cent.

This left the global coal and gas generation remaining almost unchanged, with a slight decrease in coal use (1 per cent) and and gas declining by 0.05 per cent; however, these were offset by a slight rise in oil. Consequently, global CO2 power sector emissions were unchanged, despite the rise in electricity demand.

"Wind and solar are proving themselves during the energy crisis. The first step to ending the grip of expensive and polluting fossil fuels is to build enough clean power to meet the world’s growing appetite for electricity. We can’t be sure if we’ve reached peak coal and gas in the power sector. Global power sector emissions are still pushing all-time highs when they need to be falling very quickly. And the same fossil fuels pushing us into a climate crisis are also causing the global energy crisis. We have a solution: wind and solar are homegrown and cheap, and are already cutting both bills and emissions fast." Malgorzata Wiatros-Motyka, senior electricity analyst at Ember summarised.

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