• Commentary

        • 29 May 2026

        Battery storage is scaling up and taking on a larger system role

        …utility-scale battery storage additions in 2025 were co-located directly with renewables, on par with the previous year. This meant the share of capacity co-located with renewables fell just below 30%, as market reforms in China in early 2025 removed broad co-location mandates.Meanwhile, the rollout of battery storage accelerated across several markets in 2025, pointing to a broadening of global deployment. Australia stood out, with additions surging to nearly 8 GW, almost nine times higher than the previous year. Utility-scale installations in the country rose from under 1 GW in 2024 to around 4.2 GW in 2025…

        • Commentary

        • 23 Jan 2026

        Investment in next-generation geothermal is surging. Policies are key to further growth

        …reservoirs. Operators can either circulate fluid through fractures that have been induced (through what is known as enhanced geothermal systems) or transfer heat to the surface through closed-loop circuits. These technologies are advancing quickly, potentially enabling economically-viable geothermal development nearly anywhere in the world. The IEA’s Future of Geothermal Energy report, published in late 2024, estimated that with continued technology improvements and reductions in project costs, next-generation geothermal could meet up to 15% of global electricity demand growth to 2050. Geothermal technology families Next-generation geothermal technology remains at an early stage of development. In general…

        • Commentary

        • 04 Feb 2026

        Canada is set to play a leading role in supplying the world with responsibly produced critical minerals

        …and announced projects could enhance its role as a major global supplier of nickel, lithium, graphite, cobalt and rare earth elements. Mining of copper, cobalt, lithium, nickel and graphite is already widespread across several provinces and territories, with 56 active projects in 2024 – and Canada already covers, or aims to cover, multiple stages of the supply chain domestically. It also has the potential to significantly scale up production capacity. Canada’s lithium reserves, for instance, could supply around half of cumulative global demand from 2030 to 2050. Canada, which hosts about half of the world’s publicly listed mining and exploration…

        • Commentary

        • 22 Mar 2026

        Wired for water: How electrification is transforming desalination

        …of consumption. As the global population grew by 30%, municipal withdrawals increased at a similar pace, while a moderate decline in industrial withdrawals partly offset growth in other sectors.As population and municipal demand increase, water stress is intensifying. Chronic overuse of non-renewable water sources can cause irreversible to damage natural capital, leading to a situation referred to as “water bankruptcy”. Over the past two decades, the number of people living in highly water-stressed areas has risen by almost 1 billion to more than 3 billion. Three-quarters of this growth occurred in extremely high-stress regions, areas…

        • Commentary

        • 10 Feb 2026

        What it would take to unlock the next phase of hydrogen growth

        Can hydrogen scale up successfully Global hydrogen demand reached 100 Mt in 2024, mainly from refineries, the production of chemicals and the iron and steel sector. Demand grew by almost 2% from 2023, in line with overall energy demand growth. This consumption was almost completely met with hydrogen produced from unabated fossil fuels, using 290 billion cubic metres of natural gas and 90 million tonnes of coal equivalent. However, alternative technologies that can produce low-emissions hydrogen have attracted a lot of interest from governments given their potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and diversify energy supply, particularly in countries that have a…

        • Commentary

        • 19 Jan 2026

        7 certainties about energy for this age of uncertainty

        …such as AI, data centres and high-tech manufacturing – and is increasing its share of major sectors like road transport and heating through technologies such as EVs and heat pumps. Already today, more than half of the investment going into the global energy sector each year is going to electricity. Renewables will keep growing Despite some headwinds, in many countries around the world, renewables are meeting much if not all of the rising demand for electricity, often because they are the most competitive option. Solar is leading the way, as the countries that are increasingly driving energy demand, such as…

        • Commentary

        • 19 Jun 2026

        Delivering on the EU’s electrification ambitions

        …competitiveness, and climate strategy. Today, imported fuels account for around 60% of the EU’s total energy demand and cost the bloc EUR 380 billion in 2024. The risks associated with the EU’s reliance on fuel imports have been highlighted by recent market disruptions linked to the near-closure of the Strait of Hormuz amid the conflict in the Middle East, bringing renewed attention to the EU’s target of increasing electrification from 24% today to 32% of energy consumption by 2030.This commentary is the second in a series examining the case for electrification in the EU. The…

        • Commentary

        • 27 Mar 2026

        Policy and financing momentum sustain CCUS progress despite setbacks

        …operating in Norway. Major projects were also commissioned in China and North America, and the construction of new facilities began in eight countries worldwide. The newest annual update to the IEA’s CCUS Project Database – which incorporates developments between the first quarter of 2025 and the first quarter of 2026 – found that capture capacity that was operational or under construction during this period was over 10% higher than in the previous Database update, which covered the first quarter of 2024 through the first quarter of 2025. Meanwhile, storage capacity increased by around 25%. In terms of future prospects, the total…

        • Commentary

        • 13 Mar 2026

        Why the growth of energy service companies is uneven globally

        …as ESCOs, average market revenues increased by over 78% in the past three years.Overall, ESCO markets scale up where policy frameworks are durable, procurement rules are aligned with performance contracting, and projects are implemented through standardised processes. In markets lacking these conditions, high transaction costs, contractual complexity and policy uncertainty continue to limit demand. These barriers are most visible in smaller scale and residential building projects, where ESCO models based on energy savings are harder to implement. ESCO projects achieve 25% energy savings on average In 2024, ESCO projects achieved average reported energy savings of around 25% relative t...

        • Commentary

        • 15 Jun 2026

        From farms to fuel: Ukraine’s biomethane opportunity for energy security and European decarbonisation

        Ukraine biomethane A strategic opportunity for biomethane in Ukraine In 2025, Ukraine exported biomethane to the European Union (EU) for the first time – a milestone that opens an opportunity to scale-up domestic low-emissions gas. Home to the largest agricultural land area in Europe, Ukraine has the resource potential to become one of the continent’s leading biomethane producers, supplying both its domestic market and the EU via an already existing pipeline infrastructure.The first exports of biomethane come at a critical moment. Repeated Russian attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure have exposed the vulnerabilities of centralised energy supply. Although…

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