The year ahead for DNV’s energy forecasting

March

Energy Industry Insights. Our annual survey of energy industry professionals

Our Industry Insights draws on DNV’s annual survey of over 1,300 senior professionals and in-depth interviews with experts. It presents views from across electrical power, renewables, oil and gas, energy consumers, and specialists within energy technology, finance, and policy. Our 2022 survey was conducted immediately prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and it is instructive to see what sentiments have changed – and what hasn’t – across the industry in the last 12 months. From multi-year megatrends to one-off events, the 13th edition of the research captures the opportunities and challenges that are top of mind for the world’s leading energy companies.

May

Transport in Transition: a deep dive into fuels, electricity, and infrastructure

It is in the transport sector where the shift from oil to low- and zero-emission fuels will be most spectacular in the coming three decades. This report takes a deep dive into the big fuel switch in road transport, aviation, and shipping – both globally, and in ten world regions. The report is fuel-centric: covering the penetration of electricity, including indirect electrification hydrogen and its derivatives, fossil-derived blue hydrogen, and bio-derived fuels across the transport sectors. Associated infrastructure needs will also be projected.

September

Maritime Forecast to 2050

Our report on the decarbonization of shipping with special focus on advising the industry on the transition to carbon-neutral fuels will be launched at the London Shipping Week in mid-September. We will investigate both the availability and the well-to-wake emissions of shipping’s future carbon-neutral fuels.

The energy transition in Northern America

We are preparing a deep dive report on the energy transition to 2050 in the USA and Canada, inspired by the promulgation of the Inflation Reduction Act, but also as part of our celebrations marking the 125^th anniversary of DNV’s operations in the USA.

Together, the USA and Canada constitute the wealthiest of our global regions, with a unique innovative capacity. But in terms of the energy transition, the region has so far not been a global leader. Ambitions are, however, on the rise, and in this deep dive we will give DNV’s view on whether the region can step up to exert global leadership in the transition, and what a likely future in terms of energy production and energy use will be.

October 

Energy Transition Outlook 2023

The 7^th edition of our flagship report will be launched once again in October. The report details our best estimate view on the main categories of energy demand and supply for 10 world regions and globally through to 2050. This year, we will place additional focus on the implications of geopolitical shifts for the energy transition.  We will also take a closer look at our energy efficiency predictions, given that energy efficiency – largely linked to accelerating electrification – remains the unsung hero of the transition. Supply chains shifts and constraints will also be in focus, as will (possible) resource limitations for selected technologies. The overriding theme in the report will be the tension between all-time high energy emissions in 2022 and the imperative of urgent action to keep Paris ambitions alive.

Pathway to Net Zero Emissions

First published in the run-up to COP 26, DNV’s Pathway to Net Zero Emissions report is a ‘backcast’ of what it will take to achieve a net zero energy global energy system by 2050, and thus secure a 1.5 degree warming future. We characterize this as a politically and economically feasible pathway to achieve net zero, but caution that each passing month of inaction adds enormous cost and difficulty to coming generations – not only in terms of more extensive carbon removal efforts, but also in the form of mounting climate damage. We show how net zero does not mean gross zero – meaning that some energy sectors and regions will have to move faster than others. Broadly speaking, OECD countries will need to achieve net-negative emissions well before 2050, with the rest of the world going to zero as soon as possible thereafter.

November 

Norway’s Energy Transition

Published in collaboration with the Norwegian Federation of Industries, this report draws on our global systems dynamics model of the energy transition to forecast the production and use of energy within Norway and its energy trading links regionally and internationally through to 2050. In previous editions of this forecast we have highlighted how Norway is not on track to meet its emission targets, and detail, as we will again this year, opportunities, and challenges, for doing so.

December

The UK’s Energy Transition

The release of our first deep dive into the UK’s energy transition was very well received by a wide range of stakeholders, and substantially increased our customer assignments leveraging our UK ETO report. We will therefore be following up with a new report towards the end of this year.

The UK has made good progress in decarbonizing its economy, and is well-placed to shift fully to a cleaner, more efficient, and more secure energy system. However, progress hinges long term policy clarity that provides a stable investment environment to turbocharge our move to a green economy.

Sverre Alvik, project director of DNV’s Energy Outlook team, comments as follows:

“It is important to understand short-term pressures on the energy industry in relation to long term drivers of the transition. In the short term, geopolitical rivalry and home-shoring of supply chains will gather pace, threatening the global technology cooperation that has been a key enabler of ever-lower prices on panels, turbines, and batteries. In the medium term, the main drivers of the transition – electrification, the rollout of ever-cheaper renewables and storage, and accelerating efficiencies – are likely once again to take primacy over the short-term dynamics of high energy prices and supply bottlenecks set in train by the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine.”