DNV, assurance and risk management provider, has highlighted how 10 key energy transition technologies are expected to develop, compete, and interact over the next five years if global economies are to meet emissions reduction targets
The report, a new supplement to DNV’s annual Energy Transition Outlook, considers safety, efficiency and competitiveness as well as the technical capability of these technologies, to deliver the deep decarbonisation the world is striving for.
Remi Eriksen, group president and CEO of DNV, said, “The world needs to transition faster to a deeply decarbonised energy system, reducing emissions by around 8% each year to ensure an energy future compliant with the 1.5-degree ambition set under the Paris Agreement. This urgent and complex challenge requires full energy system thinking: understanding the timeline and interdependencies of technologies, policies, and the difficult decisions that need to be made.”
The Technology Progress Report’s 10 areas of focus were identified with two main criteria. First, is their ability to achieve an observable shift in the energy system, based on how quickly it is being deployed and how much costs are expected to fall over the next five years. Second is how the technologies interact with each other, sometimes referred to as sector coupling.
DNV’s technology analysis reaffirms that there is no “silver bullet” and that the world needs to act urgently on multiple fronts to reach net-zero by mid-century. These include growing electricity from renewables, further improvements in energy efficiency, and carbon capture and storage (CCS).
In energy production solar PV will grow with its progressing development, but will more and more be supplemented by floating wind, and waste-to-fuel and feedstock can help decarbonise hard-to-abate sectors.
The utilisation of pipelines for low carbon gases, meshed HVDC grids, and new battery technologies are considered important to advance energy transport, storage and distribution.
Energy use considers the production of green hydrogen and scaling of CCS to effectively decarbonise manufacturing as well as energy production. It also looks at novel shipping technologies and the continued rise of electric vehicles and their integration with power grids.
“Existing competitive technologies, such as solar and wind power, need to take full advantage of the virtuous circle where cost decline both causes and is caused by the growing number of unit installations. For less-mature technologies, like green hydrogen, scaling from prototype to worldwide commercial uptake is critical,” concluded Sverre Alvik, director of Energy Transition Outlook at DNV.
