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Country report
Sep 2023
Financing Clean Energy in Africa Clean energy investment landscape: setting the scene
Summary The IEA’s Africa Energy Outlook 2022 laid out a new scenario – the Sustainable Africa Scenario (SAS) – which sees the continent achieve by 2030, in full and on time, all of its energy and climate-related goals, including universal energy access and its NDCs.Realising the SAS requires mobilising over USD 200 billion annually by 2030, but energy investment has been declining in Africa and in 2022 was under USD 90 billion. Clean energy spending was a fraction of this at around USD 25 billion – only 2% of the global total despite the recent rise in global clean energy investment. This is far from what…
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Policy report
Oct 2025
Financing Electricity Access in Africa State of play
Understanding electricity access financing As of 2024, around 600 million people in sub-Saharan Africa (47% of the population) did not have access to electricity. With electrification barely keeping up with population growth rates, progress remains far off the pace envisaged both by African governments and international organisations. Reaching universal access requires a cost-effective, multi-technology approach, with grid extension, mini-grids and stand-alone systems all playing a role to ensure affordable service provision to unelectrified communities. Notably, financing has been one of the primary impediments to growth.For the first time, the IEA has tracked electricity access financing commitments…
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Commentary
13 Feb 2026
Global battery markets are growing strongly – and so are the supply risks
part 1- lithium-ion batteries Batteries’ importance is increasing across key sectors including autos, power, data centres and beyond The global lithium-ion battery market exceeded USD 150 billion in 2025, an increase of over 20% from 2024, but its economic and strategic significance extends far beyond market size. Batteries are becoming a cornerstone of the automotive sector, a critical source of flexibility for power systems, and an increasingly important source of back-up power for digital infrastructure, including data centres and artificial intelligence.Beyond energy, batteries remain indispensable for a wide range of industrial and strategic applications, from portable…
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Policy report
Jun 2025
Gaining an Edge
The Role of Energy Efficiency in Enhancing Competitiveness Energy efficiency delivers more than energy savings and emission reductions – it can also improve the competitiveness of countries and firms. From increased profitability to job creation, energy efficiency helps firms compete amid high costs, growing demand, and rising trade pressures. In today’s global context, energy efficiency is not only a matter of energy policy, but also of economic policy.The report analyses historical progress in industrial energy efficiency and its role in enhancing industrial competitiveness. It includes comparisons of firm-level energy efficiency, identifying performance gaps and opportunities for further improvement. Drawing…
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Flagship report
Apr 2026
Global Energy Review 2026 Electricity demand
Electricity demand grew more than twice as fast as overall energy demand Global electricity demand grew year-on-year by around 3% in 2025, easing from 4.4% in 2024, when intense heat waves boosted electricity consumption. Nevertheless, the 2025 growth rate remained above the 2.8% annual average observed between 2014 and 2024 and was also well over twice the rate of overall global energy demand growth in 2025 (1.3%). Demand growth was well above long-term average rates in advanced economies, but slowed in Asian economies In 2025, emerging market and developing economies accounted for 80% of…
- Key findings
- Global trends
- Oil
- Natural gas
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+ 9 pages
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Commentary
23 Jan 2026
Investment in next-generation geothermal is surging. Policies are key to further growth
Next-generation geothermal readies for take-off Next-generation geothermal is seeing a burst of financing, innovation and new supply agreements Geothermal energy harnesses naturally occurring heat found beneath the Earth’s surface to provide heating and cooling, electricity and energy storage. As global electricity demand rises and power systems place a growing premium on firm supply, geothermal energy’s ability to provide an around-the-clock, low-emissions source of power is attracting renewed attention. However, easy-to-access conventional geothermal resources are relatively rare and mostly confined to a small number of shallow geothermal hotspots globally, accounting for…
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Energy system
Solar PV
Solar PV continues to dominate global renewables growth, though at a slower rate
Recent policy changes are expected to affect the pace at which solar PV capacity is added annually through the end of this decade. Even so, low costs, faster permitting and broad social acceptance are set to continue to drive the accelerating adoption of solar PV. As a result, capacity is set to more than double between 2025 and 2030 compared with the 2019 to 2024 period.
A growing share of variable renewable sources such as solar also comes with challenges. Curtailment levels and instances of negative electricity…
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Topic
COP28: Tracking the Energy Outcomes
The latest IEA data and analysis on global action to meet the energy goals set at COP28 Nearly 200 countries made major collective pledges on energy at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai with the aim of keeping within reach the Paris Agreement target of limiting global warming to 1.5 °C. For the first time, governments explicitly recognised that to achieve this target, energy-related emissions need to reach net zero by 2050, and they set key goals to help meet this objective – including tripling global renewable energy capacity and doubling global energy efficiency improvements by 2030, and deploying emerging technologies…
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Flagship report
May 2025
Global EV Outlook 2025 Trends in heavy-duty electric vehicles
Electric bus and truck sales The electric bus market continued to expand, backed by increasingly favourable economics Electric bus sales grew by 30% in 2024Global sales of electric buses reached more than 70 000 in 2024, driven by renewed growth in China. Sales outside of China increased by just 5% in 2024, although they have almost tripled compared to 2020. As electric bus sales have increased in a range of countries, China’s share of global sales has fallen from around 99% in 2017 to less than 70% in 2024. Although electric bus sales in China generally declined from 2017 to…