Indicator 7.2.1 Renewable energy share in the total final energy consumption

Indicator 7.2.1: Renewable energy share in the total final energy consumption

Target 7.2: By 2030, increase substantially the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix

International Energy Agency (IEA)

United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD)

International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA)

Definition:

The renewable energy share in total final consumption is the percentage of final consumption of energy that is derived from renewable resources.

Concepts:

Renewable energy consumption includes consumption of energy derived from: hydro, wind, solar, solid biofuels, liquid biofuels, biogas, geothermal, marine and renewable waste. Total final energy consumption is calculated from balances as total final consumption minus non-energy use.

Comments regarding specific renewable energy sources:

• Solar energy includes solar PV and solar thermal.
• Liquid biofuels include biogasoline, biodiesels and other liquid biofuels.
• Solid biofuels include fuelwood, animal waste, vegetable waste, black liquor, bagasse and charcoal.
• Renewable waste energy covers energy from renewable municipal waste.

Percent (%)

Data on renewable energy consumption are available through national energy balances compiled based on data collected by the International Energy Agency (for around 150 countries) and the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) for all countries. The energy balances make it possible to trace all the different sources and uses of energy at the national level.

Some technical assistance may be needed to improve these statistics, particularly in the case of renewable energy sources. Specialized industry surveys (e.g. on bioenergy use) or household surveys (in combination with the measurement of other indicators) would be feasible approaches to filling in data gaps (e.g. for use of firewood, off-grid solar energy).

National administrations, as described in documentation on sources for IEA and UNSD:

http://wds.iea.org/wds/pdf/WORLDBAL_Documentation.pdf

unstats.un.org/unsd/energystats/data

• A limitation with existing renewable energy statistics is that they are not able to distinguish whether renewable energy is being sustainably produced. For example, a substantial share of today’s renewable energy consumption comes from the use of wood and charcoal by households in the developing world, which sometimes may be associated with unsustainable forestry practices. There are efforts underway to improve the ability to measure the sustainability of bio-energy, although this remains a significant challenge.
• Off-grid renewables data are limited and not sufficiently captured in national and international energy statistics.
• The method of allocation of renewable energy consumption from electricity and heat output assumes that the share of transmission and distribution losses are the same among all technologies. However, this is not always true; for example when renewables are usually located in more remote areas and may incur larger losses.
• Likewise, imports and exports of electricity and heat are assumed to follow the renewable share of electricity and heat generation, respectively. This is a simplification that in many cases will not affect the indicator too much, but that might do so in some cases, for example, when a country only generates electricity from fossil fuels but imports a great share of the electricity it uses from a neighboring country’s hydroelectric power plant.
• Methodological challenges associated with defining and measuring renewable energy are more fully described in the Global Tracking Framework (IEA and World Bank, 2013) Chapter 4, Section 1, pages 194-200. Data for traditional use of solid biofuels are generally scarce globally, and developing capacity in tracking such energy use, including developing national-level surveys, is essential for sound global energy tracking.

This indicator is based on the development of comprehensive energy statistics across supply and demand for all energy sources – statistics used to produce the energy balance. Internationally agreed methodologies for energy statistics are described in the “International Recommendations for Energy Statistics” (IRES), adopted by the UN Statistical Commission, available at: unstats.un.org/unsd/energystats/methodology/ires.

Once an energy balance is developed, the indicator can be calculated by dividing final energy consumption from all renewable sources by total final energy consumption. Renewable energy consumption is derived as the sum of direct final consumption of renewable sources plus the components of electricity and heat consumption estimated to be derived from renewable sources based on generation shares. The indicator is calculated based on the following formula:

${TFEC}_{RES}=\mathrm{\ }\frac{{TFEC}_{RES}+\left({TFEC}_{ELE}\times \frac{{ELE}_{RES}}{{ELE}_{TOTAL}}\right)+\left({TFEC}_{HEAT}\times \frac{{HEAT}_{RES}}{{HEAT}_{TOTAL}}\right)}{{TFEC}_{TOTAL}}$

Where:

$TFEC$: Total final energy consumption is the sum of final energy consumption in the transport, industry and other sectors (also equivalent to the total final consumption minus the non-energy use).

$ELE$: Gross electricity production

$HEAT$: Gross heat production

$RES$: Renewable energy sources which include hydropower, wind, solar photovoltaic, solar thermal, geothermal, tide/wave/ocean, renewable municipal waste, solid biofuels, liquid biofuels, and biogases.

The denominator is the total final energy consumption of all energy products, while the numerator includes the direct consumption of renewable energy sources plus the final consumption of gross electricity and heat that is estimated to have come from renewable sources. This estimation allocates the amount of electricity and heat consumption to renewable sources based on the share of renewables in gross production in order to perform the calculation at the final energy level. For instance, if total final consumption is 150 TJ for biogas energy, while total final consumption of electricity is 400 TJ and heat 100 TJ, and the share of biogas is 10 percent in electricity output and 5 percent in heat output, the total reported number for biogas consumption will be 195 TJ (150 TJ+400TJ*10%+100TJ*5%).

The Global Tracking Framework Report (IEA and World Bank, 2013) provides more details on the suggested methodology for defining and measuring renewable energy (Chapter 4, Section 1, page 201-202).

2024-03-28

International Energy Agency (IEA)

United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD)

International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA)

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