Wind Turbine
A field of wind turbines

By 2016, energy produced from hydro, solar and other renewable sources will surpass gas and nuclear energy as the main source of power worldwide.

According to the Medium-Term Renewable Energy Market Report produced by the International Energy Agency (IEA), renewable power is expected to increase by 40 percent in the next five years, despite the difficult economic conditions that are predicted. It is estimated that up to a quarter of all global energy will be from renewables by 2018, up from 20 percent in 2011.

“As their costs continue to fall, renewable power sources are increasingly standing on their own merits versus new fossil-fuel generation,” IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven said as she presented the report at the Renewable Energy Finance Forum in New York. “This is good news for a global energy system that needs to become cleaner and more diversified, but it should not be an excuse for government complacency, especially among OECD countries.”

The report also mentions the difficulties that many countries are having with regard to policy, especially European countries that are currently struggling to deal with economic stagnation and high energy demands.