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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 Energy and Climate Model Current Policies Scenario (CPS)
The 2025 edition of the World Energy Outlook (WEO) reintroduces the Current Policies Scenario (CPS). It was a regular feature of the International Energy Agency suite of scenarios until the WEO-2020, when it was discontinued amid turmoil in energy markets and rapid changes in the policy landscape during the Covid-19 pandemic. Now that the world has passed through the pandemic and the global energy crisis triggered at the outset of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there is merit in revisiting the CPS. The scenario relies only on measures that are formally written into existing legislation and regulation, and…
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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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Insa Handschuch
Climate Resilience and Energy Policy Analyst.
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Sixth Energy Research Programme
…emphasis on enhanced assistance for research and development of forward looking energy technologies. The German governments budget for energy research clearly reflects its commitment in this regard as it is making around EUR 3.4 billion available for energy research for the period from 2011 to 2014. The remarkable increase in funding of around 75 percent compared to the period from 2006 to 2009 will mainly be used for the newly established "Energy and Climate Fund". The funds will be employed for strategic priority areas that are vital for a speedy transformation of Germanys energy supply: renewable energies, energy efficiency…
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Energy Conservation Ordinance
…must be replaced. There were some 2 million such boilers in 2001. The ordinance sets stricter energy requirements when modernisation or retrofitting measures are undertaken than did the 1995 Thermal Insulation Ordinance. In some specific cases the ordinance requires retroactive improvement of insulation of floors, ceilings and piping. By virtue of Germanys Integrated Energy and Climate Programme, adopted on 23 August 2007, these standards are to be raised by an average of 30% by 2008/2009 and will be raised once again by up to the same percentage in a second stage.(See separate entry on 2007 Energy Conservation Regulations)
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Energy and AI Executive summary
The transformative potential of AI depends on energy There has been a step change in the capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI), driven by falling computation costs, a surge in data availability and technical breakthroughs. AI is the science of making machines capable of learning to perform tasks that traditionally required human intelligence. AI is emerging as a general-purpose technology, much like electricity. Today, it can generate text and videos, accelerate scientific discovery in fields like medicine or materials science, make manufacturing robots smarter and more productive, drive commercial taxis in complex city landscapes, and detect threats to critical infrastructure…
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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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World Energy Investment 2026 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 2026 (WEI 2026) 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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Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2025 Innovation in mining, refining and recycling to promote diversification
New technologies in mining, refining and recycling hold major potential to scale up diversified supplies Continued growth in mineral demand in the coming decades calls for substantial contributions from supply sources that are sustainable and minimise losses and waste. However, progress on upstream and midstream, or “supply-side”, innovations has been lagging. Building resilient and responsible mineral supply chains will require efforts to scale up new technologies that can increase supply volumes, improve the energy efficiency of production processes, and reduce water consumption, waste generation and emissions all along the supply chain. These innovations can help achieve various policy goals…