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Energy and AI Energy demand from AI
What is a data centre? Artificial intelligence (AI) model training and deployment occur mainly in data centres. Understanding the role of data centres as actors in the energy system first requires an understanding of their component parts. Data centres are facilities used to house servers, storage systems, networking equipment and associated components that are installed in racks and organised into rows. This IT equipment, and a range of auxiliary equipment required to keep it in working order, comprise the following:Servers are computers that process and store data. They can be equipped with central processing units (CPUs) and specialised accelerators…
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Financing Clean Energy in Africa Executive summary
…spending would go to clean energy. Energy investment in Africa has been falling in recent years. Spending on fossil fuels – which has typically accounted for around two-thirds of investment – has declined and clean energy investment has remained flat. This report explores the continent’s investment needs under the Sustainable Africa Scenario (SAS) developed in the IEA’s Africa Energy Outlook 2022. The scenario considers the diverse needs of different African countries and sectors and lays out a pathway to achieve the energy-related Sustainable Development Goals, including universal access to modern energy by 2030, as well as fulfilling all…
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Ensuring a Strong Labour Dimension for Just and Inclusive Energy Transitions Just and Inclusive Energy Transitions
…a just energy transition for workers. The International Labour Organization (ILO) defines just transition as “greening the economy in a way that is as fair and inclusive as possible to everyone concerned, creating decent work opportunities and leaving no one behind’’. The ILO also stresses the need to respect fundamental labour principles and rights and to implement effective social dialogue. In 2015, the ILO published Just Transition Guidelines covering a range of measures: labour market policies to create new decent jobs and limit job losses, skills development, mechanisms for social dialogue, guidance on policy coherence, occupational safety and health policies…
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Energy Efficiency Policy Toolkit Appliances
…programmes can lower the upfront costs of investing in appliances and can persuade consumers to buy more efficient products, while motivating technology suppliers to innovate and produce high efficiency alternatives. By offering incentives, policy makers can accelerate the transition to highly efficient appliances. More informationThis toolkit provides an overview of the most important elements of each policy instrument, but you can find more by exploring additional resources. IEA Appliance Energy Efficiency Policy online trainingIEA TCEP for Appliances and EquipmentUnited for Efficiency (U4E) Energy Efficient AppliancesIEA Energy Efficiency 2024IEA 4E TCP Annual Report 2024IEA & 4E Programme AchievementsCLASP World’s Best MEPS
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Breakthrough Agenda Report 2025 Fertilisers
…look to develop harmonised lifecycle emissions accounting methodologies, establish an internationally recognised certification and labelling system, and make use of these methodologies and systems within relevant policies. The process should be closely co-ordinated with relevant work from initiatives in the hydrogen sector to ensure compatibility across value chains.Governments and initiatives should agree to establish a global set of guidelines that define metrics and thresholds to promote and track soil health. This should include efforts to systematically report and monitor indicators of soil health, crop productivity, and fertiliser use, as well as an agreement to share information.Separately, governments…
- Executive summary
- Power
- Hydrogen
- Road transport
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+ 4 pages
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Energy and AI AI for energy optimisation and innovation
…of considering the full theoretical potential of AI-led interventions, as it factors in certain insurmountable structural issues that would block their complete adoption. For example, we consider variations in adoption by region by factoring in the availability of enabling digital infrastructure. AI applications for optimising energy systems Oil and gas companies have been among the earliest adopters of new technologies to boost exploration and production. In 2000, 11 supercomputers operated by oil and gas companies ranked among the world’s 500 fastest. By 2024, this number had increased to 24, and total computing capacity has grown at almost 70…
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Breakthrough Agenda Report 2026 Cement and concrete
Cement and concrete
- Executive summary
- Hydrogen
- Road transport
- Steel
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+ 3 pages
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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 and energy security
…reliable access to energy to meet an economy’s needs; second, the affordability of this energy with limited volatility in prices; and third, resilience against energy market shocks – or the ability of the energy system to quickly recover from them.A notable use case of AI towards the security of critical energy infrastructure is in places that are typically hard for humans to access. For example, the use of automated surveillance using unmanned maritime systems enabled by AI to secure critical undersea energy infrastructure. Similarly, AI-based predictive maintenance is revolutionising energy infrastructure management by ensuring reduced downtime and improved…
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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…
