According to a REN 21 study, renewable power capacity rose by 161 GW (+9%) in 2016, to more than 2,000 GW at the end of the year. This is the largest increase ever and it exceeds the cumulated thermal power capacity installed in 2016: renewables accounted for nearly 62% of all new capacity additions in 2016.
Most of the increase came from solar PV (47% of new capacity installed in 2016), with around 75 GW added worldwide, mainly in China (+34.5 GW to 78 GW), in the United States (+14.8 GW to more than 40 GW) and in Japan (+8.6 GW to nearly 43 GW). Wind and hydropower accounted for most of the remaining installations, contributing 34% and 15.5%, respectively: according to REN 21, wind capacity additions reached 55 GW in 2016, while 25 GW of new hydropower capacities were added.
Despite the boom in new installations, renewable investments slowed down in 2016, at US$241.6bn, compared to US$312.2bn in 2015 (-23%); this was mainly due to the slowdown in investments in Japan, China and some other emerging countries. Significant cost reductions in solar PV and
in onshore and offshore wind power also contributed to this reduction, while improving the cost-competitiveness of those technologies.
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