Global electricity demand rebound depends on more fossil fuels: IEA

Electricity demand rises, show that renewables are expanding but not enough to satisfy the market; hence, depending mainly on fossil fuels and threatening to push CO2 emissions to record levels by 2022, said the International Energy Agency (IEA).

"Fossil fuel-based electricity generation is set to cover 45 percent of additional demand in 2021 and 40 percent in 2022, with nuclear power accounting for the rest," said the agency. Therefore, the carbon emissions are expected to increase by 3.5 percent in 2021 and by 2.5 percent in 2022.

The agency said that the electricity generation from renewables – such as hydropower, wind and solar PV – is on the path to grow around the world over the next two years, by 8 percent in 2021 and by more than 6 percent in 2022.

"But even with this strong growth, renewables will only be able to meet around half the projected increase in global electricity demand over those two years," said the IEA.

“Renewable power is growing impressively in many parts of the world, but it still isn’t where it needs to be to put us on a path to reaching net-zero emissions by mid-century,” said Keisuke Sadamori, the IEA Director of Energy Markets and Security in the statement.

“As economies rebound, we’ve seen a surge in electricity generation from fossil fuels. To shift to a sustainable trajectory, we need to massively step up investment in clean energy technologies – especially renewables and energy efficiency," Sadamori added.

The agency said that coal-fired electricity generation is set to increase by almost 5 percent in 2021, and 3 percent in 2022. Meanwhile,  Gas-fired generation, which declined 2 percent in 2020, is forecasted to grow by 1 percent in 2021 and by nearly 2 percent in 2022.