Preview of World Energy Outlook 2018

The World Energy Outlook (WEO) is the gold standard of long-term energy analysis. The 2018 edition provides updated analysis to show what the latest data, technology trends and policy announcements might mean for the energy sector to 2040. It also outlines an integrated way to meet multiple sustainable development goals: limiting the global temperature rise in line with the Paris Agreement, addressing air pollution, and ensuring universal access to energy.

These points of orientation allow for rigorous thinking about the future against a backdrop of cost reductions in key clean energy technologies, the continued vitality of shale in the United States, and the fast-changing dynamics of energy investment.

This year’s Outlook includes a special focus on electricity: The future is electrifying, with low-carbon technologies on the rise and electricity demand set to grow at twice the pace of energy demand as a whole. But what will tomorrow’s power sector look like? How will it incentivise investment and ensure reliable supply, and what share of our total energy needs can ultimately be met by electricity?

The 2018 World Energy Outlook also examines how innovation can improve the environmental performance of different sources of oil and gas, and extends our ground-breaking Sustainable Development Scenario to include the linkages between energy and water.

In addition, the WEO-2018 series features a special report on producer economies, to be released for free on 25 October: How are traditional oil and gas-exporting countries adapting to today’s new price and policy environment, and what might be the implications for these economies of longer-term structural changes in demand?