It's from the IEA, not exactly pillars of starry eyed optimism. Just the opposite. The IEA has a track record of massive pessimism when it comes to renewables and a bias for projecting growing fossil fuels.
The IEA has been predicting the same thing with stubborn consistency in every single one of the last 15 outlooks, being proven breathtakingly wrong every time.
On the surface, the release of the IEA World Energy Outlook today brought shockingly bad news: the growth of renewable energy capacity added each year is likely to hit a brick wall, as of now, after more than a decade of explosive growth. There goes our best hope of decarbonizing the power sector and driving down global emissions. Not really though. It’s just the IEA, arguably the world’s most prominent energy analyst, doing what they do every year: putting out a tremendously pessimistic take on the future prospects of renewable energy.
The IEA remains in denial about the renewable energy revolution that is sweeping the world. The agency continues to project zero growth in the market size of key renewable energy technologies for the next years and decades. This is a prediction it has made with stubborn consistency in every single one of at least the past 15 annual outlooks, being proven massively, breathtakingly wrong every time.
For example, in the World Energy Outlooks published in 2002-2010, the annual solar power additions in the year 2015 were projected at 1-5 gigawatts, while the actual market size that year was 50 gigawatts – an astounding 10 times as high as the IEA projected just 5 years prior.
Why does the IEA keep getting renewables wrong?The IEA is projecting coal use in developing countries to increase in use. However this is offset by falls in advanced countries, falls in China, and higher efficiency coal plants. China is currently engaging in a shift to diversify it's power sector. It is increasing natural gas imports while building nuclear plants and renewables in a bid to diversify away from coal and improve it's air quality problem.
Coal
In Europe and North America, coal demand remains under pressure due to low electricity demand growth, strong uptake of renewables-based capacity and, in the United States, the availability of inexpensive natural gas. Nonetheless, elsewhere coal demand could be more resilient than some expect, especially among developing economies in Asia.
Coal demand in 2040 in the New Policies Scenario (NPS) has been revised down by some 3% compared with last year’s outlook. Downward revisions have been made for industrial coal use, as the shift from coal to alternative fuels in industry speeds up, and in the buildings sector where coal use almost disappears. Overall coal demand for power generation declines slightly in the NPS as moderate growth in coal-fired generation is offset by improvements in plant efficiencies.
Key Trends
In the NPS, falling consumption in China, European Union and United States is balanced by rising demand in India and Southeast Asia.
World Energy Outlook 2018China is gradually diversifying away from coal. Recently, China has been able to meet growth in primary energy consumption even as its coal consumption slightly declined. Behind this trend lies the very rapid growth in the consumption of all other forms of primary energy, especially hydropower, nuclear power, natural gas and renewable power.
Coal playing smaller part in Chinese energy growth"In 2017, China overtook South Korea to become the second-largest LNG importer. The first place was taken by Japan. It is estimated that in 2019, China will become the largest natural gas importer around the globe." According to a report released by the Sinopec Economics & Development Research Institute, it is estimated that China's natural gas consumption in 2018 will reach 277 billion cubic meters, surging 17 percent, or 40 billion cubic meters, on a year-on-year basis. This will account for 8 percent of the nation's primary energy consumption.
Natural gas imports hit recordCoal-fired electricity generation in China, the world’s largest coal consumer, is expected to remain flat through 2040, according to EIA’s International Energy Outlook 2017 (IEO2017). Other fuels, such as renewables, natural gas, and nuclear power, are expected to make up increasing shares of China’s electricity generation. Coal remains China’s largest source of electricity, accounting for more than 72% of the nation’s electricity generation in 2015. In the Reference case of EIA’s long-term international energy projections, China’s coal share of generation steadily decreases to nearly 50% by 2040, as generation shares from renewables and nuclear both increase.
Chinese coal-fired electricity generation expected to flatten as mix shifts to renewables
The oil barrel is half-full.