New Delhi, July 20 (UNI) The world’s electricity demand growth is slowing sharply from its strong recovery the previous year as eco- nomic growth weakens and energy prices soar following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Electricity Market Report said on Wednesday.
Global electricity demand is expected to grow by 2.4 percent in 2022 after last year’s six percent increase, bringing it in line with its average growth rate over the five years prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, the report said.
While electricity demand is currently expected to continue on a similar growth path into 2023, the outlook is clouded by economic turbulence and uncertainty over how fuel prices could impact the generation mix.
Strong capacity additions are set to push up global renewable power generation by more than 10 percent in 2022, displacing some fossil fuel generation. Despite nuclear’s three percent decline,low-carbon generation is set to rise by seven percent overall, leading to a one percent drop in total fossil fuel-based generation. As a result, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the global electricity sector are set to decline in 2022 from the all-time high they reached in 2021, albeit by less than one percent. In the first half of 2022, average natural gas prices in Europe were four times as high as in the same period in 2021 while coal prices were more than three times as high, resulting in wholesale electricity prices more than tripling in many markets. The IEA’s price index for major global electricity wholesale markets reached levels that were twice the first-half average of the 2016-2021 period. Due to high gas prices and supply constraints, coal is replacing natural gas for power generation in markets with spare coal plant capacity, particularly.
