From energy crisis to energy transition: How renewables are reshaping energy security

This article is published in association with United Nations.

The continuing conflict in the Middle East is disrupting global energy markets and pushing up fuel prices, with knock-on effects far beyond the region.

For Francesco La Camera, Director-General of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the crisis is also reshaping how the world understands the phrase “energy security.” 

For decades, that meant a country’s reserves of oil and gas. Today, he says, countries want a system that is more diverse, decentralised and within their own control – and renewables are becoming central to that.

From reserves to autonomy

Speaking to UN News‘s Jing Zhang during the General Assembly’s High-Level Week, Mr. La Camera traced today’s thinking back to the oil shocks of the 1970s, when the world first treated energy security as a systemic concern and set up international bodies to stabilise markets. 

Back then, energy security meant one thing: reserves of oil and gas.

“Countries have realized that a centralized energy system based on fossil fuel doesn’t provide energy security,” he said. 

Fossil fuel supply is highly concentrated and much of it passes through a handful of maritime chokepoints, so a geopolitical shock can ripple through global markets within days. 

Renewables, he argued, offer the opposite: energy from many sources and places, owned by many different actors.

Countries with a higher share of renewables, he noted, have generally weathered the current crisis better. Spain has been comparatively less affected; in Norway, close to half of road transport is now electric.

Transition gathers pace

The drive toward renewables was once powered mainly by the goal of meeting the Paris Agreement, Mr. La Camera said. Now energy security is reinforcing that momentum.

“We are moving toward a new energy system built primarily on renewables, complemented by the sustainable use of biomass and, above all, green hydrogen,” he said.

Around 90 per cent of new power generation capacity added worldwide each year now comes from renewables, he noted, and in China, solar capacity overtook coal-fired capacity for the first time in history at the end of July. 

“The direction of travel is no longer in question,” he said. “The real question is the speed and scale.”

Molecules and electrons

Economic competitiveness in the years ahead, Mr. La Camera said, will depend heavily on whether energy systems can deliver “molecules” – green hydrogen – and “electrons” – electricity and storage – at lower cost. 

Renewables, he said, are already among the most competitive sources of electricity. Addressing concerns about intermittency, he pointed to IRENA research showing that renewables paired with storage can deliver round-the-clock, year-round power – what the agency calls “firm renewables” – more cheaply than gas or nuclear.

Electrification, he added, is central to decarbonisation, with buildings, transport and industry all needing to electrify further. 

But with demand growing faster than expected and efficiency gains lagging, he warned the supply-demand gap by 2030 could be wider than previously projected. 

Tripling renewable capacity by 2030 may not be enough alone – hence IRENA’s 35 by 35 goal: raising electricity’s share of final energy consumption to 35 per cent by 2035, likely a key COP31 topic.

Three challenges

Mr. La Camera identified three priorities: 

1. Infrastructure – interconnected, flexible grids supported by artificial intelligence and digitalisation, plus ports and related facilities; 
2. A fairer legal and regulatory environment – since fossil fuels still benefit from subsidies that slow the new system’s growth
3. Workforce – retraining workers for the energy system ahead.

For developing countries, high financing costs and limited grids compound the challenge: he is calling on multilateral financial institutions to make infrastructure and grid modernisation a clear priority.

Asked for his message to the world, Mr. La Camera did not hesitate: “Grid, grid, grid – interconnectivity, flexibility and balance. This is, I think, the most urgent thing to act on right now.”