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Bruce Douglas, CEO of the Global Renewable Alliance

Bruce Douglas (Global Renewable Alliance): Ambition must translate into action to deliver on the promises made


As the world races to meet the ambitious goal of tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030, the energy sector faces both unprecedented momentum and significant hurdles. Milestones achieved in 2024, such as surpassing 2 terawatts of global solar capacity and the addition of 117 GW of new wind power across 54 countries, underscore the sector's transformative potential. Yet, despite this progress, key challenges remain unresolved following COP29, including financing bottlenecks, permitting delays, and grid infrastructure constraints.

With 2025 poised to be a decisive year for the global energy transition, governments, financial institutions, and private sector actors must bridge the gap between ambition and action. This means tackling policy barriers, accelerating energy storage deployment, and enhancing grid resilience to withstand the growing impacts of climate change.

To provide insight into the road ahead, Review Energy sat down for an exclusive interview with Bruce Douglas, CEO of the Global Renewable Alliance. Drawing from his frontline experience, Douglas offers a candid assessment of COP29's impact, the strategies required to meet the 2030 renewable energy target, and the vital role that governments, businesses, and the private sector must play in the years to come.

Review Energy (R.E.): COP29 left many issues unresolved. What key lessons has the renewable energy industry learned in 2024, and how should governments and businesses apply these lessons to accelerate the energy transition?

Bruce Douglas (B.D.): 2024 showed that the renewable energy revolution is no longer a future goal—it’s happening now. Milestones speak volumes: the solar industry surpassed 2 TW of installed capacity globally just two years after reaching its first terawatt, while 54 countries collectively added 117 GW of new wind power. These achievements highlight the enormous potential of renewables.

However, significant policy and financial obstacles remain after COP29. Flawed global financial structures, policy uncertainties, permitting delays and grid constraints continue to limit private investments in many emerging markets and developing economies. Current policies often fail to create the necessary supportive environments, delaying, rather than accelerating, the deployment of renewables.

For governments and businesses, the message is clear: ambition must translate into action. Policies should prioritise enabling environments for renewable energy, while financial flows need to focus on unlocking the potential of emerging markets and developing economies. The renewable energy industry is ready to scale up—but it requires decisive action to remove barriers and deliver on the promises made.

R.E.: Despite the global momentum towards renewables, obstacles in infrastructure and financing remain significant. What concrete actions should governments take in 2025 to unlock the necessary investments?

B.D.: Governments must act decisively in 2025 to accelerate renewable energy investments, particularly in emerging markets and developing economies. This includes setting specific, ambitious national targets to send strong market signals, mobilising public funding to de-risk projects and using financial tools like blended finance, guarantees, and currency hedging to attract private capital.

A fundamental shift in financial flows is crucial. Currently, regions like Africa, which hosts 18% of the global population, receive less than 2% of global renewable energy investment. Closing this gap requires scaling up concessional finance and strengthening domestic financial infrastructure.

Governments must also reform regulatory and market structures, creating transparent, stable environments that inspire investor confidence. In short, achieving our renewable energy targets depends on taking action on enabling policy frameworks and channeling resources to where they are most needed, with clear and urgent financial commitments.

R.E.: The goal of tripling renewables by 2030 is ambitious. Given current progress, is it realistic? What urgent changes need to happen in 2025 to meet this target?

B.D.: Tripling renewables by 2030 is not just an ambitious goal - it’s a baseline commitment endorsed by all countries at COP28 to keep us on a 1.5°C pathway. While it’s achievable and even surpassable, we are currently off track. Meeting this target requires swift and decisive action across three key areas in 2025.

Firstly, grid connection reforms are urgently required. Over 3,000 GW of renewable energy projects - equivalent to the total electricity system of China - are currently stuck waiting for grid connection. Fast-tracking these projects through streamlined, transparent processes, and accelerating grid development, would significantly boost deployment. Energy storage is also a key flexibility tool that must be deployed as fast as possible to maximize the potential of renewable energy. The COP29 energy storage and grids pledge, already being supported by 58 countries, sends a great signal.

Secondly, permitting timelines must be drastically shortened. In many places, delays in approvals take longer than the time needed to construct projects. Emergency permitting reforms, like those implemented by the EU, show how we can unlock large numbers of projects quickly.

Finally, 2025 sees a huge opportunity for countries to introduce ambitious, specific and actionable renewable energy targets into their national climate plans (NDCs). Governments and industries must work together to turn global commitments into local action.

R.E.: Energy storage continues to be a critical bottleneck for renewables. What role should the private sector play in overcoming this challenge, and what innovations can we expect in 2025?

B.D.: Energy storage, particularly long-duration storage, is crucial for ensuring reliable, year-round clean energy access and the achievement of the tripling renewables goal. While many storage technologies are already available, the focus must shift to large-scale deployment and optimising existing solutions across different markets.

The private sector has a dual role. First, companies must scale up the deployment of storage systems, particularly in areas with high renewable energy potential. Second, on the demand side companies can refine business models and operations to adapt to renewable energy availability. For instance, energy-intensive industries can align their operations with generation patterns, scaling up during peak renewable hours and scaling down during low-output periods. This can be facilitated through dynamic pricing mechanisms. Governments and policy frameworks have a huge role to play to provide incentives for storage development.

In the coming years, we expect continued innovation in cost-effective storage solutions, like advanced batteries, thermal energy storage, and pumped hydropower. However, collaboration with policymakers is essential to create market structures that incentivise storage adoption, ensuring clean energy is not only reliable but also affordable. 

R.E.: The heatwaves of 2024 highlighted the vulnerability of electrical grids. How can the renewable industry improve the resilience of energy infrastructure as we approach 2025?

B.D.: Extreme weather events in 2024 exposed the critical need for resilient energy infrastructure. A robust approach is required: reducing carbon pollution through renewable deployment to mitigate extreme weather events, while modernising grid infrastructure to increase resilience. Electricity grids are the backbone of this effort, a priority advocated by the Green Grids Initiative (GGI) in a recent position paper.

The renewable energy industry should prioritise grid modernisation, focusing on digitalisation to enable optimal management of grid operation and planning. The use of predictive analytics, which can identify weak points and prevent failures before they happen, is an example of how grid resilience can be improved. Decentralisation is key too - local solar and storage solutions, like rooftop installations and community-level battery systems, make grids more adaptable and reduce dependence on centralised infrastructure.

Investing in short- and long-duration energy storage systems ensures that demand fluctuations and outages can be managed efficiently. Furthermore, renewable infrastructure, including wind turbines and solar panels, must be built to withstand extreme weather conditions, with transmission lines and substations reinforced against heat, floods, and storms.

In addition, having a diversified energy mix is essential for balancing grids under stress. Climate change is making drought events and extreme storms more frequent and intense. This year, Latin America, heavily reliant on hydropower, faced reduced rainfall. Diversifying the energy mix with hybrid renewable projects and energy storage helps mitigate such fluctuations, maintain penetration of renewables and grid stability. Developing robust interconnection networks also allows regions to leverage neighbouring resources and strengths, creating greater resilience across borders.

Lastly, governments must collaborate closely with the private sector and policymakers, securing investments, streamlining permitting processes, and incentivising resilience policies and measures to build a robust, clean, and climate-resilient energy system.

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