Update | IEA World energy outlook 2024
Moving at speed into ‘the age of electricity’
The International Energy Agency’s World energy outlook 2024 shows critical choices facing governments and consumers as a period of more ample supplies nears and surging electricity demand reshapes energy security
Regional conflicts and geopolitical strains are highlighting significant fragilities in today’s global energy system, making clear the need for stronger policies and greater investments to accelerate and expand the transition to cleaner and more secure technologies, according to the IEA’s World energy outlook 2024.
World energy outlook 2024 examines how shifting market trends, evolving geopolitical uncertainties, emerging technologies, advancing clean energy transitions and growing climate change impacts are all changing what it means to have secure energy systems. In particular, the new report underscores that today’s geopolitical tensions and fragmentation are creating major risks both for energy security and for global action on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The report’s projections based on today’s policy settings indicate that the world is set to enter a new energy market context in the coming years, marked by continued geopolitical hazards but also by a relatively abundant supply of fuels and technologies.
This includes an overhang of oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply coming into view during the second half of the 2020s, alongside a large surfeit of manufacturing capacity for some key clean energy technologies, notably solar PV and batteries. “In the second half of this decade, the prospect of more ample – or even surplus – supplies of oil and natural gas, depending on how geopolitical tensions evolve, would move us into a very different energy world from the one we have experienced in recent years during the global energy crisis,” said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol. “It implies downward pressure on prices, providing some relief for consumers that have been hit hard by price spikes. The breathing space from fuel price pressures can provide policymakers with room to focus on stepping up investments in clean energy transitions and removing inefficient fossil fuel subsidies. This means government policies and consumer choices will have huge consequences for the future of the energy
sector and for tackling climate change.” Based on today’s policy settings, the report finds that low-emissions sources are set to generate more than half of the world’s electricity before 2030 – and demand for all three fossil fuels – coal, oil and gas – is still projected to peak by the end of the decade. Clean energy is entering the energy system at an unprecedented rate, including more than 560 GW of new renewables capacity added in 2023, but deployment is far from uniform across technologies and markets. China stands out: it accounted for 60% of the new renewable capacity added worldwide in 2023. World energy outlook 2024 also shows that the contours of a new, more electrified energy system are coming into focus as global electricity demand soars. Electricity use has grown at twice the pace of overall energy demand over the last decade, with two-thirds of the global increase in electricity demand over the last ten years coming from China. “In previous World energy outlooks, the IEA made it clear that the future of the global
Thousand TWh 12 Solar PV Coal 9
Natural gas 6 Hydropower
3 Nuclear
0 2010
Wind 2015 2020 2025 2030 2035
Solar PV
Wind
Coal
Natural gas
Nuclear
Hydropower IEA. Licence: CC BY 4.0
World annual electricity generation in the Stated Policies Scenario (STEPS), 2010-2035. Source: IEA World Energy Outlook 2024. Estimates for 2024 (thousand TWh) are: PV 2.1; wind 2.6; coal 10.8; natural gas 6.7; nuclear 2.8; hydro 4.5
10 | November/December 2024|
www.modernpowersystems.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45
