153 GW.

That’s the amount of renewable energy generation capacity added worldwide in 2015.

For the first time, renewables were more than half of net new capacity additions.  China alone was 40% of this total, and overall global generation is 23% renewables now. The growth is partly driven by the continued decline in contracted costs for renewables, which are expected to halve again by 2021.

Renewables also overtook coal for the first time as a % of total installed electricity capacity worldwide (the total % of energy produced by coal is still meaningfully higher in the US, which seems to skew many investors’ thinking).

One of the greatest tech investors I know says that the Next New Thing is always the Thing you are sick of talking about, because you’ve been waiting 20 years and bet on it 10 times already and it’s never worked out… and then just when you have finally dismissed it once and for all and you can’t talk about it without rolling your eyes, blammo!  It finally takes off.

Details on the data above can be found at the International Energy Agency website (though the full report is a paid publication).  More about the IEA forecasts can be seen here.

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