The renewable “electric age” sweeps through a world enamored with fossil fuels

>> Expansion of installed new energy capacity in China

>> The world can triple its capacities provided it supports the countries of the South

“We have experienced the age of coal and the age of oil, and we are now entering at high speed into the age of electricity, which will define the global energy system in the future and will be increasingly based on clean sources of electricity”, estimates the executive director of the IEA Fatih Birol cited in the press release of the organization’s annual report, World Energy Outlook 2024.

In this report, based on current policies, the IEA confirms its forecast of a peak in demand for all fossil fuels (oil, gas and coal) “by the end of the decade”contrary to estimates from the oil and gas industry and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

“With nuclear energy, which is the subject of renewed interest in many countries” and the rise of solar and batteries, “the sources (energy) low-emissions are expected to produce more than half of the world’s electricity before 2030″, says the IEA.

The OECD Energy Agency describes a thirst for electricity driven by industry, electric mobility, the needs of AI and the 11,000 data centers identified around the world, and air conditioning.

And “the growing momentum for clean energy transitions” is there, “the world is still far from a trajectory aligned with its carbon neutrality objectives” to 2050, however, underlines the IEA which calls for acceleration.

This report comes one month before the UN climate conference, COP29, organized in Baku from November 11 to 22. If this will focus on climate finance, that of Dubai in 2023 resulted in an agreement paving the way for the gradual abandonment of fossil fuels whose emissions warm the planet.

During this COP28, States committed to acting to triple renewable capacities by 2030, an objective considered essential to limit global warming to +1.5°C compared to the pre-industrial era. .

According to the IEA report, renewable electricity production capacity will increase from 4,250 GW today to almost 10,000 GW in 2030, which is certainly “lower” to the tripling objective, but “more than enough, in total, to cover the growth in global electricity demand and push coal-fired power production into decline.”

Reduce emissions

Thanks to the rise of “clean technologies”, IEA expects peak in global CO emissions₂ “avant 2030”. More “In the absence of a sharp decline thereafter, the world is on track to achieve a 2.4°C rise in global average temperatures by the end of the century”well beyond the most ambitious objective of the Paris agreement, set at + 1.5°C.

Vehicles prepare the ground before the installation of new solar panels for the Ningxia power plant in Tengger Desert, China, December 9, 2023.

Photo : AFP/VNA/CVN

“2024 has shown that demand for electricity is insatiable, and the IEA assumes it will remain so (…) This means that the world is not yet in the process of abandoning fossil fuels and reducing CO emissions₂ in the energy sector”, commented Dave Jones, director of the perspectives program at the think tank Ember.

According to the IEA, “a record level of clean energy was installed globally in 2023, but two-thirds of the increase in energy demand was still met by fossil fuels.”

They thus covered a little less than 80% of global energy demand in 2023, a share which has decreased very gradually since 2011, when it stood at 83%.

In the countries of the South in particular, the increase in energy needs continued to push up fossil fuels, including coal, which reached record consumption in 2023, the hottest year on record.

The IEA also expects a nearly 50% increase in liquefied natural gas (LNG) export capacities in the near future. A “vague” according to the IEA which nevertheless suggests “overcapacity” for this gas transported by ship, highly coveted since the drastic reductions in Russian land supplies.

AFP/VNA/CVN