Renewables Forecast Accelerates for 2030

In the World Energy Outlook 2023, the International Energy Agency (IEA) assured that renewable energies will have a greater participation in global energy demand in 2030, compared to what they had projected a year ago. anus.

On the one hand, the agency points out that investment in clean energy has increased 40 percent since 2020, but this factor has not only been accelerated by the drive to reduce emissions. 

The international organization states that the economic arguments in favor of mature clean energy technologies are solid, to which are added concepts such as energy security, particularly in fuel-importing countries, as well as industrial strategies and the desire to create clean energy jobs. 

The international organization warns that not all technologies advance at the same pace, and there are some that have supply chains under pressure, such as wind energy.

Despite the pressures, this year more than 500 gigawatts (GW) of renewable generation capacity will be added, which represents a new record, driven mainly by photovoltaic energy, where one billion dollars are invested every day for its deployment.

Furthermore, in the opposite direction, the demand for fossil fuels, that is, coal, oil and natural gas, will reach its peak before 2030.

The IEA’s outlook suggests that the global energy supply from fossil fuels, which currently stands at 80 percent, by 2030, in the best case scenario, would fall to 73 percent.

“However, if demand for these fossil fuels remains at a high level, as has been the case for coal in recent years, and as is the case in the projections for oil and gas, it is far from sufficient to achieve global climate objectives,” warns the organization.

impulse channels 

The international organization points out that the policies that promote clean energy are beginning to show results, as the pace of projected change accelerates in the world’s large markets, particularly since the United States Inflation Reduction Act, the Green Deal of the European Union and progress in China.

In the Old Continent, heat pump installations will reach two-thirds of the level needed in 2030 to reach net zero, compared to one-third projected two years ago.

In China, projected PV and offshore wind energy additions through 2030 are now three times larger than in the World Energy Outlook 2021 report.

“The outlook for nuclear energy has also improved in major markets, with support for extending the life of existing nuclear reactors in countries such as Japan, Korea and the United States, as well as for new construction in several more,” the document adds.

Furthermore, in the electricity sector, the global addition of coal- and natural gas-fired power plants has fallen by at least half from previous peaks.

“Sales of residential gas boilers have been trending downward and are now surpassed by heat pump sales in many countries in Europe and the United States,” the analysis says.

Accelerate electromobility

Based on changes in energy and mobility policy worldwide, the penetration of electric cars in developed countries also presents an acceleration scenario.

The World Energy Outlook predicts that half of new cars in the United States will be electric in 2030, in the best scenario, against 12 percent, expected two years ago.

Sales of cars and two- or three-wheeled vehicles with internal combustion engines are well below what they were before the Covid-19 pandemic, the document says. 

At a general level, in 2020 one in every 25 cars sold was electric; In 2023 it stands at an average of one in five.