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Governments around the world are faced with the challenge of ensuring electricity security and meeting growing electricity uses while simultaneously cutting emissions. The significant increase in renewables and electrification of end-uses plays a central role in clean energy transitions. However, due to the variable nature of solar PV and wind, a secure and decarbonised power sector requires other flexible resources on a much larger scale than currently exists today. These include low-carbon dispatchable power plants, energy storage, demand response and transmission expansion. The availability and cost of these technologies depends on local conditions, social acceptance and policies.

The possibility to combust high shares of low-carbon hydrogen and ammonia in fossil fuel power plants provides countries with an additional tool for decarbonising the power sector, while simultaneously maintaining all services of the existing fleet. The relevant technologies are progressing rapidly. Co-firing up to 20% of ammonia and over 90% of hydrogen has taken place successfully at small power plants, and larger-scale test projects with higher co-firing rates are under development.

Ultimately, using large volumes of low-carbon hydrogen and ammonia in the power sector will help establish supply chains and drive down costs through economies of scale and technological improvements, thereby complementing and mutually reinforcing the use of low-carbon in fuels in other hard-to-abate sectors such as long-haul transport and industry.

Hydrogen is expected to play important roles in decarbonised energy systems, as an energy source for otherwise hard-to-electrify sectors as well as a storage vector to enhance power system flexibility. However, hydrogen is not a primary energy resource and has to be produced using different chemical processes. Water electrolysis, which uses electricity to split water molecules to extract hydrogen, is expected to become a leading solution in this context. Electrolysis will, however, only be a feasible solution

if the electricity used as feedstock comes from low-carbon sources. A significant number of countries are therefore considering a role for nuclear energy in their hydrogen strategies.

This report provides an assessment of the costs and competitiveness of nuclear-produced hydrogen across the hydrogen value chain and explores the impacts of hydrogen production on the overall costs of integrated electricity and energy systems. It shows, in particular, that nuclear energy can be a competitive source to produce and deliver low-carbon hydrogen for centralised industrial demand. The large scale and dispatchability of nuclear power can also improve the cost-efficiency of hydrogen transport and storage infrastructures, and reduce the overall costs of the energy system.

Technology manufacturing plays a pivotal role in the energy transition required to meet climate, energy security and economic development goals. Deploying clean energy technologies at the pace required to put the world on a trajectory consistent with net zero emissions by mid-century will demand rapid expansion in manufacturing capacity, underpinned by secure, resilient and sustainable supply chains for their components and materials.

The State of Clean Technology Manufacturing: Energy Technology Perspectives Special Briefing provides an update on recent progress in clean energy technology manufacturing in key regions. It focuses on five technologies – solar PV, wind, batteries, electrolysers and heat pumps – that will be critical to the energy transition. Manufacturing capacity for these technologies is expanding rapidly, driven by supportive policies, ambitious corporate strategies and consumer demand. The aim is to keep decision makers informed of investment trends and the impact that recent industrial strategies are having in these highly dynamic sectors.

This special briefing was produced to support deliberations at the 2023 G7 Leaders’ Summit in Hiroshima, Japan, from 19-21 May 2023. It builds on analysis in the latest edition of the IEA’s flagship technology publication, Energy Technology Perspectives 2023 (ETP-2023), published in January 2023, to take into account the latest announced expansions in manufacturing capacity.

Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine has had a dramatic impact on the global energy system. Russia was the world’s largest oil and natural gas exporter in 2021, and energy markets have been thrown into turmoil, with major energy security and supply risks worldwide.

Substantial gas resources currently are being produced that do not make it to market because they are lost to flaring and leaks across the oil and gas supply chain. This report estimates that nearly 210 billion cubic metres (bcm) of natural gas could be made available to gas markets by a global effort to eliminate non-emergency flaring and reduce methane emissions from oil and gas operations.

If countries that currently export natural gas to the European Union were to implement these two measures, they could increase gas exports by more than 45 bcm using existing infrastructure, equivalent to almost one third of Russian gas exports to the EU in 2021.

Petrochemical products are everywhere and are integral to modern societies. They include plastics, fertilisers, packaging, clothing, digital devices, medical equipment, detergents, tires and many others. They are also found in many parts of the modern energy system, including solar panels, wind turbine blades, batteries, thermal insulation for buildings, and electric vehicle parts.

The Future of Petrochemicals takes a close look at the consequences of growing demand for these products, and what we can do to accelerate a clean energy transition for the petrochemical industry.

Meeting climate and energy goals requires a fundamental and accelerated transformation of power systems globally. Decision makers collectively must support a rapid shift to low-carbon generation while meeting strong growth in power demand, driven by increased energy access in developing economies and electrification of end-use sectors. Carbon capture, utilisation and storage (or “CCUS”) technologies can play an important role in this transformation in three ways:

First, retrofitting carbon capture technologies is an important solution to avoid the “lock-in” of emissions from the vast fleet of existing fossil-fuelled power plants while also providing plant owners with an asset protection strategy for recent investments. This is of particular relevance in Asia, where the average age of coal-fired power plants is just 12 years.

Second, increasing variable renewable generation requires dispatchable energy for flexibility and resource adequacy. Batteries and other forms of energy storage are being further developed and deployed, but carbon capture, utilisation and storage technologies are also part of the portfolio of low-carbon technologies able to meet the growing need for flexibility (to manage both short-term and seasonal variations). These strategies offer a technological hedge against innovation uncertainty in the power system transformation.

Third, through its combination with bioenergy, carbon capture technologies can enable negative-emission power plants, which may be critical for offsetting emissions in harder-to-abate sectors and to support “net-zero” climate goals.

Today, only two large-scale CCUS facilities are operating in the power sector. But experience from these first-of-a-kind plants highlights the potential to reduce costs significantly and improve technology with further research, development and deployment. Policy makers are urged to provide targeted policy support, including capital grants, public procurement and tax credits, to kick-start near-term investment in CCUS-equipped power plants.

Appliances and other electrical equipment increasingly draw power when they are switched off or not performing their primary function. This "standby power" provides remote control capability, network sensing, digital display and other features. Often, standby power is consumed simply because power supplies remain "on" while their appliances are switched "off". Standby power consumption is about 10 per cent of OECD residential energy use or the equivalent of a 60-watt light bulb operating continuously in each OECD household. Standby power consumption can be reduced by an average of 75 per cent with cost-effective design changes and technological improvements. Savings as high as 90 per cent can be achieved in many appliances without any reduction in services. Some products have already achieved very low standby power consumption at little or no cost. But standby power consumption is normally not high enough to command consumer attention. International collaboration is essential to reduce standby power consumption, since so many products and components are traded internationally. Consistent approaches, such as test procedures, standards and voluntary efforts, could also benefit manufacturers by reducing costs and barriers to trade.

This book lays out the problem posed by growing standby power consumption, explores fully the technologies available to reduce it, and outlines how increased collaboration among industry, national governments and international organisations can help.

Towards Hydrogen Definitions Based on their Emissions Intensity is a new report by the International Energy Agency, designed to inform policy makers, hydrogen producers, investors and the research community in advance of the G7 Climate, Energy and Environmental Ministerial meeting in April 2023.

This report assesses the greenhouse gas emissions intensity of the different hydrogen production routes and reviews ways to use the emissions intensity of hydrogen production in the development of regulation and certification schemes. An internationally agreed emissions accounting framework is a way to move away from the use of terminologies based on colours or other terms that have proved impractical for the contracts that underpin investment. The adoption of such a framework can bring much-needed transparency, as well as facilitating interoperability and limiting market fragmentation, thus becoming a useful enabler of investments for the development of international hydrogen supply chains.

In the last 20 years, the People’s Republic of China (hereafter, “China”) has strengthened its position on the global stage as an energy innovator, as illustrated by the stories of solar power and, more recently, electric mobility. This is the result of several decades of increasing policy focus on technology innovation, which underpin China’s ambitions to become a producer of knowledge and foster innovation-driven socio-economic development. Looking forward, clean energy innovation will play a crucial role to achieve China’s objectives of carbon peaking by 2030 and neutrality by 2060, and ranks among core government priorities for the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025).

This report builds on the IEA Energy Sector Roadmap to Carbon Neutrality in China chapter on “Innovation for carbon neutrality”, and provides complementary and new analysis and information. It maps the institutional and policy landscape of clean energy innovation in China and shows trends for selected metrics to track and explain progress of technology development.

Acceleration of clean energy innovation, supported by effective innovation policies, is critical for achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, and the technology development in the business sector will be to success. As their ambitions for technological change rise, governments are increasingly asking how they can measure the performance of their energy innovation systems, prioritise technologies and benchmark progress internationally. However, in most countries, information about private energy innovation is much less readily available and less reliable than that for the public sector. In addition, the available approaches to filling this gap have never before been compiled in a single place.

By presenting a wide variety of different approaches to tracking clean energy innovation in the business sector, this Overview demonstrates that governments and other analysts already have a range of practical options open to them. For example, the wealth of existing experience with surveys of business sector innovation, including R&D, has been applied to questions of energy by several countries. The different approaches that have been followed provide invaluable insights into their advantages, as well as the main challenges of gathering reliable energy-related innovation data from the private sector. These challenges can include the need for upfront investment, institutional capacity building and consistent classification of technologies. However, the advantages in terms of policy-relevant insights can outweigh the drawbacks, especially when data is complemented by other sources of quantitative and qualitative information.

Tracking Industrial Energy Efficiency and CO₂ Emissions responds to a G8 request. This major new analysis shows how industrial energy efficiency has improved dramatically over the last 25 years. Yet important opportunities for additional gains remain, which is evident when the efficiencies of different countries are compared. This analysis identifies the leaders and the laggards. It explains clearly a complex issue for non-experts.  With new statistics, groundbreaking methodologies, thorough analysis and advice, and substantial industry consultation, this publication equips decision makers in the public and private sectors with the essential information that is needed to reshape energy use in manufacturing in a more sustainable manner.

A wide range of countries make efforts to track their entire national public energy research, development and demonstration (RD&D) activity on an ongoing basis, also sharing the collected data with the IEA through a standardised template. However, the approaches adopted to collect data vary significantly across countries.

This roadmap describes the variety of country approaches, also identifying the most important common components: the institutional arrangements; the methods for collecting, classifying and validating the data; the data management and technology processes; and, finally, the dissemination. It is intended not only as a guide for countries near the beginning of their journeys towards the collection of energy RD&D, but also for countries with more advanced systems looking to strengthen specific areas.

The roadmap is the product of interviews held with representatives of 20 governments between November 2021 and March 2022, and it is indebted to their generosity in sharing their experiences with tracking national energy RD&D spending. Case studies based on the interviews are used to highlight noteworthy methods, while complete national systems descriptions are included in the annex. It is hoped that this publication will serve as a reference and inspiration for experts in this important area of tracking clean energy transitions and that new experiences can be added in the future.

The world needs more, better and cheaper technologies to achieve clean energy transitions, despite some progress in recent years. There is an opportunity to strengthen support for clean energy innovation as part of sustainable recovery plans and counteract the potential threats to energy technology development from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Tracking clean energy innovation progress encompasses several critical elements of effective energy innovation policy: identifying gaps and opportunities, evaluating the effectiveness of programmes and policies, and understanding the market readiness of key technologies, nationally and globally.

Drawing from available research and real-world policy examples, we use a four-pillar framework to present a set of metrics for tracking progress across clean energy innovation systems. A broad range of metrics are described for each of the pillars and key examples are illustrated with available data.

This report aims to support public and private decision makers’ efforts to accelerate clean energy innovation. Strategies for tracking progress and embedding innovation policy within energy policy are long-term commitments, and data collection can be challenging. However, tracking progress is an important element of policy good practice, and all countries have quick-win opportunities to improve. In emerging economies aiming to enhance their innovation policies, innovation system mapping and experience sharing can help make progress.

Industry is the basis for prospering societies and central to economic development. As the source of almost one-quarter of CO2 emissions, it must also be a central part of the clean energy transition. Emissions from industry can be among the hardest to abate in the energy system, in particular due to process emissions that result from chemical or physical reactions and the need for high-temperature heat. A portfolio of technologies and approaches will be needed to address the decarbonisation challenge while supporting sustainable and competitive industries.

Carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) is expected to play a critical role in this sustainable transformation. For some industrial and fuel transformation processes, CCUS is one of the most cost-effective solutions available for large-scale emissions reductions. In the IEA Clean Technology Scenario (CTS), which sets out a pathway consistent with the Paris Agreement climate ambition, CCUS contributes almost one-fifth of the emissions reductions needed across the industry sector. More than 28 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide (GtCO2) is captured from industrial processes in the period to 2060, the majority of it from the cement, steel and chemical subsectors.

A strengthened and tailored policy response will be needed to support the transformation of industry consistent with climate goals while preserving competitiveness. The development of CO2 transport and storage networks for industrial CCUS hubs can reduce unit costs through economies of scale and facilitate investment in CO2 capture facilities. Establishing markets for premium lower-carbon materials – such as cement, steel and chemicals – through public and private procurement can also accelerate the adoption of CCUS and other lower-carbon industrial processes.

Buildings are the largest energy consuming sector in the world, and account for over one-third of total final energy consumption and an equally important source of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Achieving significant energy and emissions reduction in the buildings sector is a challenging but achievable policy goal.

Transition to Sustainable Buildings presents detailed scenarios and strategies to 2050, and demonstrates how to reach deep energy and emissions reduction through a combination of best available technologies and intelligent public policy. This IEA study is an indispensible guide for decision makers, providing informative insights on:

-Cost-effective options, key technologies and opportunities in the buildings sector;
-Solutions for reducing electricity demand growth and flattening peak demand;
-Effective energy efficiency policies and lessons learned from different countries;
-Future trends and priorities for ASEAN, Brazil, China, the European Union, India, Mexico, Russia, South Africa and the United States;
-Implementing a systems approach using innovative products in a cost effective manner; and
-Pursuing whole-building (e.g. zero energy buildings) and advanced-component policies to initiate a fundamental shift in the way energy is consumed.