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01 GLOBAL OVERVIEW
energy co-operatives, but they lag behind northern European
countries due to different legal contexts and lack of support
mechanisms. 151 Denmark and Germany, in particular, have long
traditions of community and local ownership of renewable energy
systems, although Germany experienced a significant slowdown
in 2015 due to policy revisions. 152 (p See Feature.)
Major corporations and institutions around the world made large
commitments in 2015 to purchase renewable electricity. 153 It was
a record-setting year in the United States, where large corporate
buyers are helping to drive the market for renewable power and
represent a rising share of renewable energy power purchase
agreements (PPAs). 154 In addition to PPAs and leases, some
major companies are developing their own large-scale projects
in the United States, Europe, Asia and elsewhere. 155 In early 2016,
the world’s biggest government contractor concluded a deal to
buy solar power, joining a growing list of leading corporations
(now also including industrial and manufacturing companies)
signing deals for the first time in 2015 and early 2016. 156 Other
big purchasers included municipalities (p See Policy Landscape
chapter), the US military and mining companies from Australia to
Chile to South Africa. 157
Voluntary purchases of renewable energy from traditional utilities
also continued in some countries, including several countries in
Europe as well as Australia and the United States. 158 In 2014 (latest
available data), US voluntary retail green power sales totalled
74 terawatt-hours (TWh), up 10% over 2013, and represented
about 2% of total US electricity sales. 159
Through green purchasing, local ownership, and other means,
increasing numbers of jurisdictions around the world aim to meet
all of their electricity demand with renewable sources (the most
common 100% target). 160 Several cities, states and countries made
new commitments to 100% renewable power in 2015, while others
reached their targets. 161 (p See Policy Landscape chapter.) For
example, Austria’s largest state, Lower Austria, achieved its 100%
goal, providing electricity for 1.65 million people with hydro, wind,
biomass and solar power. 162 The German state of Schleswig-
Holstein reached 100% net electricity from renewables during the
year, as did several communities around the world. 163
HEATING AND COOLING SECTOR
Energy use for heat accounted for about half of total world final
energy consumption in 2015. 164 Global consumption of heat
energy grew at an average annual rate of less than 1% in recent
years. 165 Cooling demand also continued to increase in 2015 as
a result of improved energy access and rising average global
temperatures. 166
Renewable energy is used to meet heating and cooling demands
by means of solar, geothermal, aerothermal or hydrothermal i , or
biomass resources in solid, liquid and gaseous forms. Renewable
technologies also can supply electricity that can be converted
to heat. Because of an oversupply of electricity on the market at
peak renewable energy production times, electrification of heat
has received increasing attention, especially in Europe, although
there were few concrete steps in this direction in 2015. 167
In 2015, renewable energy’s share of final energy use in the heat
sector was 25%; of this share, more than two-thirds was traditional
biomass, predominantly in the developing world. 168 Modern
renewable energy supplied the remaining third – or approximately
8%. 169 Although the total amount of deployed renewable heating
and cooling technologies is growing worldwide, annual growth
rates are falling. 170 Low global oil prices resulted in a slowdown
in investment in renewable energy heating and cooling during
2015. 171
In the buildings sector, biomass and solar thermal energy
account for the vast majority of modern renewable heat (with
most recent estimates ranging from 7% to 10% of total heat
demand combined). In the industry sector, bioenergy dominates
renewable heat production (accounting for roughly 10% of total
heat demand). 172 Trends in the use of renewable energy for heating
vary by technology, although relative shares have remained
stable in the past few years.
n Bioenergy accounted for over 90% of modern renewable
heat generation in 2015. 173 In some regions – especially in
European countries that import solid biomass – an ongoing
discussion on the use of biomass for heat was spurred by the
sustainability debate in the transport sector. 174
n Solar thermal accounted for roughly 8% of modern renewable
energy heat output. The year 2015 saw increasing interest in
and deployment of large-scale solar systems in district heating
networks; markets also expanded for solar process heat in
industry (such as food and beverage as well as the copper
industry, which has substantial demand for low-temperature
heat). 175 However, most residential-scale solar thermal markets
stagnated or declined due to low oil prices, a comparative dip
in building construction in some regions and the low price
of solar PV systems; exceptions included Denmark, Israel,
Mexico, Poland and Turkey. 176
n Geothermal heat represented the remaining 2% share of
modern renewable heat generation. Over the past few years,
direct use of geothermal heat, excluding heat pumps, has
grown by over 3% annually on average, with geothermal space
heating growing around 7% annually. China, Turkey, Japan and
Iceland lead in terms of heat energy generated by direct use
of geothermal. 177
i Heat pumps utilise the ground, ambient air or water bodies for heating and cooling. The total share of renewable energy delivered by a heat pump on a primary
energy basis depends not only on the efficiency of the heat pump and its operating conditions, but also on the composition of the energy used to drive the
heat pump. (p See Sidebar 4 in GSR 2014.)
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