Global Energy Demand Expected To Recover To Pre-Crisis Levels Only By 2023 - IEA

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 13th October, 2020) The world's energy demand is forecast to return to its pre-COVID-19 levels only by 2023 in the scenario that public health risks are largely contained next year, while in case of a prolonged pandemic, it will rebound only by 2025, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Tuesday.

"Global energy demand rebounds to its pre-crisis level in early 2023 in the Stated Policies Scenario (STEPS), but this is delayed until 2025 in the event of a prolonged pandemic and deeper slump, as in the Delayed Recovery Scenario (DRS)," the IEA said in its World Energy Outlook 2020 report.

The global energy demand is now projected to grow by 9 percent in the scenario that COVID-19 is mainly contained in 2021 or by 4 percent in the prolonged pandemic scenario versus a previous forecast of 12 percent growth by 2030, the agency noted.

"Our assessment is that global energy demand is set to drop by 5 percent in 2020, energy-related CO2 emissions by 7 percent, and energy investment by 18 percent. The impacts vary by fuel. The estimated falls of 8% in oil demand and 7 percent in coal use stand in sharp contrast to a slight rise in the contribution of renewables. The reduction in natural gas demand is around 3 percent," the IEA added.

As the energy demand in advanced economies is declining, the IEA expects that a growth would be largely driven by the emerging economies such as India and China.

In terms of the energy mix forecast, oil is set to retain its leading position with 28 percent by 2040 even though it loses 3 percentage points in comparison with 2019. Coal with suffer the most, falling from a 26 percent share to 19 percent by 2040 as many countries are phasing it out in order to reduce carbon footprint. Due to this trend, bioenergy and other renewables will grow significantly, according to the agency.

"In the STEPS, renewables meet 80 percent of the growth in global electricity demand to 2030. Hydropower remains the largest renewable source of electricity, but solar is the main driver of growth as it sets new records for deployment each year after 2022," the report read.

Last week, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) forecast that oil would remain a fuel product with the largest share of the global energy mix until 2045, although its share is projected to decline by 4 percentage points over the next 25 years, to 28 percent.

Similar to IEA, OPEC projected that the share of renewable sources of energy such as solar, wind and geothermal, would grow significantly over the next 25 years, increasing its share by over 6.5 percentage points, to 8.7 percent.