Renew Extra Weekly

 The International Energy Agency (IEA) is mostly pretty gloomy about energy trends in its new global energy review - although with some exceptions. It says that global energy demand grew by 2.2% in 2024 - faster than the average rate over the past decade. ‘The increase was led by the power sector as electricity demand surged by 4.3%, well above the 3.2% growth in global GDP, driven by record temperatures, electrification & digitalisation’. It says global electricity consumption ‘rose by nearly 1,100 TWh in 2024, more than twice the annual average increase over the past led by China, with more than half of the global increase in electricity demand’.  Globally ‘electricity use in buildings accounted for nearly 60% of overall growth in 2024’, while ‘the installed capacity of data centres globally increased by an estimated 20%, or around 15 GW, mostly in the United States and China’. And it says that ‘energy intensity improvements continued to slow in 2024. After improving at ...