G20 Government Financial Support for Renewable Energy Explained: Concepts and trends

What Is Included in Government Financial Support for Renewable Energy?

Support to renewable energy can come in various forms: direct transfer of funds (such as grants, concessional loans, or guarantees), price support (such as feed-in-tariffs and feed-in-premiums), tax breaks, or the provision of land, water, and other public assets at below-market prices. The government can also directly invest in new renewable projects and provide funding for state-owned enterprises with a mandate of renewable expansion.  

Why Does G20 Financial Support for Renewable Energy Matter?

Government financial support to renewables reduces the financial barriers to building and integrating renewable energy projects. Many types of renewable energy generation installations, including grid-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) and onshore wind, are now cheaper than fossil-powered generation. However, government support is provided for several reasons:

• as legacy support of feed-in tariffs and feed-in premium policies implemented in the past;
• to provide certainty for investors given the upfront capital investment requirements or to reduce their cost of capital, particularly in many emerging market and developing economies where borrowing costs can be high; and  
• to support the connection and integration of renewable energy, including ancillary services, grid expansion and modernization, and storage.

As the world’s largest economies, G20 countries have the means to influence global energy systems. As of 2023, in the G20, advanced economies and China accounted for 95% of government financial support to renewable power. However, this support may need to double to around USD 336 billion per year to achieve the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 28) pledge to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030.

What Are the G20 Governments Doing to Support Renewable Energy?

Renewable energy investments have accelerated in response to the twin energy crises seen so far this decade, as governments and consumers seek more secure and sustainable energy sources. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Europe put in place the REPower EU initiative to phase out imports of Russian fossil fuels and accelerate the expansion of renewable energy.

Across the G20, government annual financial support for renewable energy was estimated at about USD 169 billion as of 2024. However, the total may be higher, as differences in national reporting practices and gaps in data availability make tracking difficult.

While most (77%) public financial support does not distinguish between specific renewable technologies, for the remaining support, where we are able to analyze by technology type, most are aimed at supporting solar PV and both onshore and offshore wind. 

These trends broadly reflect IRENA’s assessment of where we stand against the global goal of tripling renewables by 2030: progress is happening, both in terms of renewables financing and new capacity additions, but the pace of both needs to be faster, and grid integration needs to more strongly support increases in generation capacity.

How Do We Collect the Data?

For this inventory of G20 renewable energy support policies, we scanned public documents, especially national budgets, to find the value of government support measures to renewable energy installations between 2020 and 2024. We included policies that support renewable power generation (added capacity), storage integration, and grid expansion and upgrades.

Feed-in tariffs and feed-in premiums were included even where some measures were funded by consumer levies, which constitutes a form of price support. Also, some feed-in tariffs are paid or “topped up” from government budgets. In the European Union, we sourced the data from the European Commission’s own inventory of energy support policies, produced by Enerdata and Trinomics.