More effort needed to ensure clean energy technologies are on track for a sustainable energy transition: IEA

The majority (23 of 26) of clean energy technologies for a sustainable energy transition monitored by IEA, has been assessed to be orange (“showing advances but more effort needed”) or red (“significantly off-track and requires renewed policy focus”).

In its latest “Tracking Clean Energy Progress 2017” report, IEA analyses the progress of these technologies and shares next steps to advance the sustainable energy transition. Some highlights include:

• Onshore wind and solar showed strong annual capacity growth in 2016, with record low long-term contract prices in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. This contributed to renewables achieving an overall record-breaking 6% generation growth.
• On the energy storage side, favourable policy environments and reductions in battery prices have driven rapid scale-up in deployment – reaching almost 1 gigawatt (GW) in 2016.
• The electrification of passenger transportation also set a new record, with more than 750,000 electric vehicles (EVs) sold in 2016. This brings global EV stock to two million. That said, remaining transport modes, including aviation, shipping and road freight show a lack of sufficient progress
• Gas-fired power generation needs to make additional progress, which includes improving the efficiency and flexibility performance of plants, to get on track for a sustainable energy transition. Increased gas-fired power generation is essential to provide support for the integration of variable renewables and serve as a short-term, lower-carbon alternative to coal, while preventing stranding of assets in the long term.
• Industrial sector action must accelerate to keep annual growth in final energy consumption below 1.2% from 2014 to 2025, less than a half of the average 2.9% annual growth since 2000. While the sector has continued to progress in energy efficiency and low-carbon technology deployment, industrial production growth must be further decoupled from energy use and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
• A global portfolio of large-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects continues to prove its viability across sectors, but the pipeline of projects has effectively stalled due to lack of new investment decisions.
• Nearly two-thirds of countries still do not have building energy codes in place. A similar share of energy-consuming equipment in buildings is not covered by mandatory energy efficiency policies. To stay on track for the sustainable energy transition, average building energy use per person globally needs to fall by at least 10% by 2025, to less than 4.5 megawatt hours (MWh).

By: International Energy Agency