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Reflections on the 2024 Energy Institute Statistical Review
17/7/2024
10 min read
Feature
Launch of the 73rd Statistical Review of World Energy, published by the Energy Institute in June, featured a fascinating panel including Juliet Davenport OBE Hon FEI, President of the EI; Simon Virley CB FEI, Vice Chair and Head of Energy and Natural Resources at KPMG; Romain Debarre, Partner and Managing Director of the Kearney Energy Transition Institute; and Nick Wayth, Chief Executive Officer of the Energy Institute. Here are some of the highlights of a thought-provoking discussion, chaired by Rachel Morison of Bloomberg, with insights on the Review and the current state of play of the energy transition. New Energy World Features Editor Brian Davis reports.
‘The Statistical Review is a great opportunity to zoom out, look at the bigger picture and connect up some of the dots,’ said Rachel Morison of Bloomberg. She emphasised that on the demand side, industrial energy demand consumption had ‘remained weak’ in Europe despite low prices. ‘The Review indicated that power demand has largely remained the same. Though it’s a different story in the US, with projected demand increasing because of data centres – something which is likely to happen in Europe too, but perhaps more slowly,’ she said.
Romain Debarre of Kearney saw a year of ‘very contrasted outcomes on the energy landscape’ from the Review. On one side there was very good performance on the energy transition, with a renewable push by wind and solar. However, 2023 continued to be marked by a lot of geopolitical tensions, which the energy industry ‘had generally reacted very well to’, given the changes in natural gas flow and oil flow in Europe, as well as LNG developments since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Debarre considered these changes to be ‘relatively positive’. But on the negative side, he was concerned that oil consumption continued to grow in 2023: exceeding 100mn b/d for the first time, ‘which is certainly negative for climate change’.