(Oil & Gas 360) – The ever-changing global energy markets were given a comprehensive assessment by the International Energy Agency in its World Energy Outlook 2024 released earlier this October.
The agency’s Energy Transition assessment highlights capacity additions of renewals of over 560 gigawatts added in 2023. Capacity refers to a source running at full efficiency; actual electron delivery from sources such as wind and solar averages 34% and 24% efficiency, respectively. Nuclear ran at 93% of capacity in 2023.
Although the IEA doesn’t say if it’s adjusted for inflation, its report notes that global investment in clean energy has increased by 60% since 2015, with $2 trillion invested in 2023, nearly twice that invested in fossil fuel development.
The IEA foresees the sun quickly setting on fossil fuels, which have dominated as the primary energy source that has powered global economic growth over the past few centuries.
Worldwide coal demand, for instance, is projected to start declining within the next year; peak demand for oil and gas will follow suit by the end of the decade due to an oversupply of oil and LNG affecting markets by 2026.
The report says the glut is not only a function of increased efficiency and technical advances by fossil fuel drillers and miners but that government diktats aimed at carbon controls to limit global warming to 1.5 centigrade by the end of the century would negate the need for any new fossil fuel projects.
Solar photovoltaic (PV) is projected to lead the energy path of the future with an expected sixfold increase in capacity to reach 1,100 gigawatts annually.
One gigawatt can power 750,000 homes, so 1,100 gigawatts could power about 825 million homes. Ample manufacturing capacity for lithium-ion batteries is expected to put battery storage at the forefront of the future as well.
Despite trillions of dollars and millions of people working either directly or indirectly to help drive Energy Transition, the report acknowledges that electricity security is increasingly becoming a more prominent topic in public policy circles.
The report says that energy is moving towards what the report terms “a buyer’s market” in the second half of this decade because of the abundant supply brought on by increased competition among suppliers and efficiency gains.
By Jim Felton for oilandgas360.com
