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Till 2017, global production of electricity was 74% from fossil fuels and nuclear sources and 26% from all the renewable energy sources as reported by the International Energy Agency (www.iea.org). If one looks at the contribution from the different renewable sources, then it was majorly from hydro power (16%) followed by wind (4%), bio power (2%), solar (2%) and others (2%). Figure 2.1 shows the contribution of all the renewable energy technologies and their sub‐technologies in electricity generation worldwide from 2010 to 2018.

Further, 2019 data shows that the capacity of power generation by renewable energy sources was 2537 gigawatts (GW) worldwide. In the same year, renewable power generation capacity growth was 7.4% with an addition of 176 GW, slightly lower than that in 2018 (7.9% with an addition of 171 GW). Contribution of hydropower was maximum i.e. 1190 GW. Capacity of wind and solar energy was 623 GW and 586 GW, respectively. Bioenergy share was also noticeable i.e. 124 GW. Geothermal energy and marine energy accounted for 14 GW and 500 MW, respectively. Among the various renewable energy sources, solar energy growth dominated with a growth rate of 20% followed by wind (10%), hydropower (1%) and bioenergy (5%) as per International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) report, 2020 (IRENA 2020b).

Figure 2.1 Worldwide electricity generation (GWh) between 2010 and 2018 using all the renewable energy technologies.

Source: www.irena.org © IRENA.

Majorly, six countries around the globe are harnessing energy from renewable sources, and these countries are the United States, China, Spain, Germany, Italy and India (REN21, Paris 2014). China leads the overall production of energy from renewable sources. However, the contribution of India is also noticeable among the Asian countries especially in the hydropower sector along with the major contribution from the solar industry. To change the scenario of energy contribution, numerous researches are carried out in the field of utilizing and generating electricity from the renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, biomass, geothermal and others as well. New methods and techniques are being developed to harness energy in an efficient and fruitful manner (Gong et al. 2019). Research based on design, size and new materials formation or invention is more renowned nowadays (Kannan and Vakeesan 2016).