A new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) has found that the rapid growth of electricity worldwide in 2024 led to increased natural gas demand.
While natural gas saw the strongest increase in demand among fossil fuels, the faster-than-average growth in global energy demand in 2024 drove up consumption of renewables, gas, coal and nuclear – with increased supply of renewables and natural gas covering the majority of additional energy needs.
Based on the most recent data, the latest edition of the IEA’s Global Energy Review covers energy demand, supply, the uptake of new energy technologies and energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
The report found that global energy demand rose by 2.2 per cent in 2024 – lower than GDP growth of 3.2 per cent but considerably faster than the average annual demand increase of 1.3 per cent between 2013 and 2023.
The acceleration in global energy demand growth in 2024 was led by the power sector, with global electricity consumption surging by nearly 1100TWh, or 4.3 per cent.
This was nearly double the annual average over the past decade.
The report found that the sharp increase in the world’s electricity use in 2024 was driven by record global temperatures, which boosted demand for cooling in many countries, as well as by rising consumption from industry, the electrification of transport and the growth of data centres and artificial intelligence.
The expanding supply of low-emissions sources covered most of the increase in global electricity demand in 2024.
The supply of natural gas-fired generation also increased steadily to cover rising electricity demand.
The amount of new renewable power capacity installed worldwide rose to around 700GW, setting a new annual record for the 22nd consecutive year.
Nuclear power capacity additions reached their fifth highest level in the past three decades. As a result, 80 per cent of the increase in global electricity generation in 2024 was provided by renewable sources and nuclear, which together contributed 40 per cent of total generation for the first time.
According to the report, natural gas saw the strongest increase in demand among fossil fuels in 2024 as a result of higher power consumption.
Gas demand rose by 115 billion cubic metres (bcm), or 2.7 per cent, compared with an average of around 75bcm annually over the past decade.
Meanwhile, oil demand grew more slowly, rising by 0.8 per cent in 2024. Oil’s share of total energy demand fell below 30 per cent for the first time ever, 50 years after it peaked at 46 per cent.
Sales of electric cars rose by more than 25 per cent in 2024, with electric models accounting for one in five cars sold globally. The report found this contributed considerably to the decline in oil demand for road transport, which offset a significant proportion of the rise in oil consumption for aviation and petrochemicals.
Global coal demand rose by one per cent in 2024, half the rate of increase seen the previous year. According to the report, intense heatwaves in China and India – which pushed up cooling needs – contributed more than 90 per cent of the total annual increase in coal consumption globally, highlighting the major impacts extreme weather can have on energy demand patterns.
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