PGE Group is Poland's largest energy company. Its transformation plan targets a 50% share from renewable generation and an 85% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2030. By 2050 it intends to have net zero CO2 emissions and provide 100% green energy to its customers. As with all nations around the world, and certainly in the EU, successful transitions depend on capital flows to the right sectors, signposted by policies and support. What does and does … [Read more...]
How Biden can start to find a compromise on Nord Stream 2
The Trump administration and the U.S. Congress threatened sanctions on European companies helping to build the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, and that is still the current position of the new U.S. government. To end the deadlock, president Biden needs to change the tone of the debate and focus on the true interests of the affected parties, explains Nikos Tsafos at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He summarises those … [Read more...]
Oil’s decline will weaken its political influence
2020 was another bad year for the oil and gas industry. The pandemic made it worse but it was not the cause: a decline has been going on for a long time. Energy firms in the S&P 500 (overwhelmingly oil and gas) make up 2.3% of the total value, down from 16% just over a decade ago, and 30% forty years ago. Clark Williams-Derry and Tom Sanzillo at IEEFA explain why, how and what the likely consequences are for oil firms. For many years it’s … [Read more...]
Asia’s record Gas prices expose the need for faster market reform
After record lows in mid-2020, Asian spot prices for LNG rose tenfold to reach record highs in January 2021. This volatility is an obstacle to the development of the gas infrastructure that’s essential to the region where demand for gas is growing, explain Jean-Baptiste Dubreuil and Gergely Molnar at the IEA. There were multiple causes for the price spike, including the cold winter, limits to nuclear and coal generation, and outages at regional … [Read more...]
How to create four major regional Gas hubs in Russia
Kamil Sobczak at the Russian Gas Society has co-authored a report, “Opportunities and prospects for the development of gas hubs in Russia”, which he summarises here. It scopes out what is needed to create four major gas hubs in the Far East, North West, Central and Southern Russia. The plan will help develop and modernise Russia’s gas sector as well as increase exports. Transparency in prices and transaction volumes will be essential to create … [Read more...]
China’s 14th Five-Year Plan will reshape its growing Gas sector
Demand for natural gas in China is set to continue its rise, increasing by 7% to 9% annually to reach up to 500 bcm by 2025, explains Sylvie Cornot-Gandolphe at the IFRI Centre for Energy & Climate. Domestic gas production has continued its significant growth too, driven by a surge in shale gas. Even then, gas imports – both pipeline and LNG - should increase to fulfil the rising supply/demand gap. This growing importance of gas in the energy … [Read more...]
A new EU Gas Market must expose it to all clean energy solutions, not just gas-on-gas
Towards the end of this year the EC is expected to issue new proposals for gas legislation, a once in a decade market reform. Simon Skillings and Lisa Fischer at E3G highlight the big difference between the design of gas and electricity markets for Europe. The electricity market is growing, the gas market needs to shrink. The authors quote figures showing that the EU's 55% emissions reduction target for 2030 means natural gas use will reduce by … [Read more...]
Coal regions are ideally suited for utility-scale Wind, Solar and jobs
Over 15% of total greenhouse gas emissions in the EU come from coal-fired energy generation. 18 EU countries still use coal for electricity production. The argument goes that the phasing out of coal threatens the livelihoods of coal workers and their regional economy. But it should be the opposite, argue Elif GĂĽndĂĽzyeli and Jörg MĂĽhlenhoff at CAN Europe. Coal regions are ideally suited for new gigawatt-scale wind and solar. They already have the … [Read more...]
Satellite monitoring of Methane leaks makes policing them more effective
Satellites, drones, and airplanes should be used to detect methane leaks across the million active wells and hundreds of thousands of miles of pipelines across the U.S. That’s because without proper monitoring it’s extremely hard to find leaks, let alone regulate them. Meredith Fowlie at UC Berkeley’s Energy Institute at Haas describes their paper that uses such data to, first, show that 2.3% of upstream natural gas production is leaking. That’s … [Read more...]
Five key metrics investors need to steer Oil and Gas firms into decarbonisation
If the oil and gas industry won’t commit to meaningful strategies and milestones to decarbonise, investors must make them, say Ben Ratner at the Environmental Defense Fund and Erin Blanton at Columbia University. Already, Covid has shown how vulnerable the sector is to unexpected change. If the sector refuses to factor in rising decarbonisation ambitions and policies across the globe that vulnerability will continue for decades. At the same time, … [Read more...]
Solar is displacing Coal in India’s electricity market
India is the world’s third largest electricity market and as a fast-growing economy can, according to the IEA, lead the recovery of global energy demand out of the pandemic for the coming decade. Kashish Shah at IEEFA runs through solar’s prospects in India, which hopes to build 450GW of renewable energy by 2030. Solar is getting cheaper. A 2GW auction in June delivered India’s lowest-yet renewable energy tariff at US$31/MWh. That figure could … [Read more...]
WEO 2020 means updated price predictions to 2040: Oil, Gas, Coal, Renewables, Power
The combined effect of the global lockdown, more ambitious climate policies and the rise of renewables will have a significant effect on European power prices up to 2040, as well as the sales revenues of renewable energies. Carlos Perez-Linkenheil at Energy Brainpool uses their Power2Sim model to look at the data in the IEA’s latest World Energy Outlook 2020 and make quantitative forecasts. The pandemic has caused structural distortions to the … [Read more...]
Europe has enough Gas infrastructure. Why build more?
In early November a first vote is expected in the European Parliament on the Recovery & Resilience Facility’s €672.5bn budget. Esther Bollendorff at CAN Europe runs through the arguments against providing any funding for new gas infrastructure. She presents evidence to show that the EU is already oversupplied with gas import capacity, and all new fossil gas transmission projects have been rejected by the market since 2017. Solar and wind … [Read more...]
Why Autogas Could Help Us All Breathe More Easily
Since the COVID-19 crisis and subsequent lockdowns, many cities around the world experienced a marked improvement in urban air quality, but with traffic getting back to “normal”, air pollution is rebounding and, alongside the continued public health crisis, we are now facing an economic recession. Mobility is essential to securing jobs and getting the economy back on track, but it should not come at the expense of the environment. Filipa Rio, … [Read more...]
Europe’s 55% emissions cut by 2030: proposed target means even faster coal exit
The EC is proposing a target emissions reduction of 55% by 2030 compared to 1990 levels, instead of the previously agreed 40% (which the EU is on course to surpass). The main tool for achieving it will be the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS). Prices for allowances will rise, making coal increasingly uncompetitive. Sören Amelang, Kerstine Appunn and Julian Wettengel at CLEW talked to a number of experts who say the new target implies a near total … [Read more...]
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