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Wired for water: How electrification is transforming desalination
Wired for water: how electrification is transforming desalination The water-energy nexus Pressure on water resources is increasing worldwide and can be very acute at the local level. Rising consumption across sectors combined with population growth in already water-stressed regions is intensifying water scarcity. Desalination has long been developed to supply fresh water in the most affected areas, with significant implications for the energy system: energy use ranges from under 0.1% to as much as 15% of total final consumption, depending on national reliance. However, a shift is underway from thermal desalination technologies to electricity-driven systems as…
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Heat Pump Taxonomy
A common framework for heat pumps classification and data Heat pumps are a cornerstone technology for achieving secure, affordable and sustainable heating. They have become one of the most common heating technologies and have the potential to impact significantly future trends for energy consumption in buildings and beyond.Tracking and analysing the pace of heat pump deployment compared to that of conventional heating technologies is essential for understanding future needs with regards to energy demand, investments in electricity infrastructure and fuel supply.Despite their growing importance, data on heat pump installations, as well as on their performance and cost, remain…
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What Next for the Global Car Industry Pathways to global EV cost-competitiveness
Highlights The gap in competitiveness in electric car manufacturing between new market-entrants located in China and incumbents in other countries has grown in the past 5 years. Battery electric car production costs are over 30% lower in China than in advanced economies, and around a third of the difference can be attributed to the battery. However, a similar production cost gap exists for conventional cars. Battery cell prices are, on average, over 30% lower in China than in Europe and over 20% lower than in the United States. Reducing the manufacturing cost gap is possible – half is due to efficiency…
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Energy and AI AI for energy optimisation and innovation
AI can help optimise complex energy systems The energy system is complex and evolving. It is becoming increasingly electrified, digitalised, connected and decentralised, with mounting cost pressures. These drivers have encouraged energy companies to deploy applications that utilise artificial intelligence to optimise systems, improve production, reduce costs, raise efficiency, improve uptime, cut emissions and enhance safety. Many of the desired goals of AI’s application in the energy sector – such as cost reductions, enhanced reliability and improved resilience – are challenging to quantify at a broader sectoral level, beyond the confines of individual case studies. It is also challenging to predict…
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Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2025 Broader view on energy-related strategic minerals: What risks to anticipate?
Many energy-related minerals are used across multiple sectors, including digital technologies, aerospace and high-performance materials While critical minerals are often associated with electrification, renewables and battery storage, their significance extends well beyond energy, underpinning a broad array of industrial and technological applications. From AI and robotics to high-performance materials and aerospace, these minerals’ contribution to industrial and technological development is increasing, with broad economic implications. The range of strategic materials with significant implications for the energy sector should not be underestimated. Superalloys – which require a diverse array of input metals – illustrate this: approximately two-thirds of global…
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What Next for the Global Car Industry Policy and strategic actions
Highlights As global electric car markets grow, countries that are home to car manufacturing operations are faced with the challenging task of ensuring that the industry retains its domestic footprint and international revenues, or even expands downstream to become a larger supplier of final products that add more value to the economy. Among other factors, uncertainty about the pace of electrification and the cost gap with Chinese production mean most countries face tough choices as they pursue near- and long-term strategies to boost industrial competitiveness.Where the car industry aims at pursuing electrification strategies, there are public and private…
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World Energy Investment 2025 How we track investment in energy
Tracking energy investment The way investment is measured across the energy spectrum varies, largely because of differences in the availability of data and the nature of expenditures. This document highlights the methodology used to ensure that the estimates are consistent and comparable across sectors in the World Energy Investment 2025 (WEI 2025) report and other publications from the International Energy Agency.The IEA measures investment as the ongoing capital spending on assets. For some sectors, such as power generation, this investment is spread out evenly from the year in which a new plant or upgrade of an existing one takes…
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Indicators Handbook for Just and Inclusive Energy Transitions Key findings from workshops on challenges and opportunities for tracking progress on just and inclusive energy transitions
Several challenges and opportunities emerged from the seven workshops. These include: Data improvements and digital opportunities Improving the availability of disaggregated data offers new ways to monitor key just transition dimensions.Clean energy programmes and policies can affect groups differently. Indicators tracking their just and inclusive dimensions, therefore, require disaggregated data that allow for intersectional analysis of key socio-economic factors such as gender, age, disability, household tenure, migration status or rural-urban divides. While the availability of disaggregated data remains a fundamental challenge for tracking just transitions across the world, improving it also represents a major opportunity for policymakers…
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Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2025 Beyond NMC batteries: Supply chain issues for emerging battery technologies
The LFP battery supply chains are significantly more concentrated than those for nickel-based batteries Lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries now supply almost half the global electric car market up from less than 10% in 2020, at the expense of the previously dominant nickel-based NMC lithium-ion batteries, due to improved performance and lower costs. This remarkable battery chemistry shift is leading to new battery critical mineral supply chains coming into focus beyond nickel and cobalt. Simultaneously, there is also the emergence of manganese-rich lithium-ion cathodes, sodium-ion batteries, as well as the anticipated impact of solid…
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Renewables in District Energy Regional trends in district heating
Regional trends in district heating
