This special edition of the World Energy Outlook has been designed to assist decision makers at the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) and beyond by describing the key decision points that can move the energy sector onto safer ground. It provides a detailed stocktake of how far countries have come in their clean energy transitions, how far they still have to go to reach the 1.5 °C goal, and the actions that governments and others can take to seize opportunities and avoid pitfalls along the way. With multiple scenarios and case studies, this WEO explains what is at stake, at a time when informed debate on energy and climate is more important than ever.

The report focuses on four main areas: self-consumption of VRE sources at various scales, the role of thermal energy storage in sector coupling strategies, electro-mobility (a promising scenario for decarbonising the transport sector with renewable electricity) and green hydrogen. The analysis also touches on several important areas affecting the adoption of sector coupling applications in the built environment, such as energy efficiency improvements in buildings as an enabler, and urban infrastructure that can underpin or impede the integration of different sectors into the network. These two areas are critical to set the boundary conditions within which the sector coupling opportunities can be identified to facilitate the integration of VRE sources. 

The report focuses on the financial opportunities and challenges for financiers, policymakers, developers, and energy companies. It combines DNV’s energy forecast to 2050 with views from leaders in the energy and finance sectors, to explore how to ensure an affordable, accelerated, and just transition. 

This whitepaper analyses the risks and opportunities for ESS in APAC and provides an overview of the tools and models DNV employs to manage risks for investors and developers. It aims to show how new policy and regulation in various countries could either support or hinder the emergence – within the next five years – of utility-scale, grid-connected ESS.

We examine business models for ESS, with examples from the APAC market. The models show that ESS are becoming increasingly commercially viable, and that such storage can deliver value by enabling fast-start capabilities and peak shaving for VRES. The co-location of storage and renewable energy sources also means investors and developers can deploy storage to offset any potential balancing costs they would incur due to intermittent generation. In addition, we describe potential revenue generation streams by providing ancillary services such as frequency containment reserves.

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) under its Long-term Energy Scenario Network, in collaboration with the Knowledge for the Energy Union Unit of the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission, organised a two-day virtual workshop on “Benchmarking long-term scenario comparison studies for the clean energy transition” on 10 and 11 September 2020.

This report synthesises the workshop discussions among experts from institutions that have recently developed long-term energy scenario comparison studies to benchmark scenario assumptions and results, increase the reliability of scenario outputs, and improve the robustness of insights for policy makers planning the energy transition. Clean energy transition scenarios are defined as pathways toward transforming the energy system from fossil-based to climate neutral by the second half of this century. The workshop provided a platform to discuss a systematic and formalised approach to scenario comparison, and to identify areas for improvement in the context of the clean energy transition and climate neutrality.