2020’s will be the decade of electricity

It does not surprise you that the coming decade will go into history as ‘the decade of electricity’. Many projects are being launched or being put on the drawing board. Wether it be on- or offshore renewable energy such as windfarms, hydro power, solar power or other alternative sources. They all focus on replacing fossil fuel power sources and reduce our footprint in the world.

Power generation

Electrification across key end users leads to a double demand of electricity by 2050. This is particularly driven by an increased demand in buildings and a general shift towards electricity as an energy source. Also road transportation is showing an incread demand for electricity. Wind and solar energy are rapidly gaining share in the capacity mix. In the past few years they accounted for more than half of the net capacity additions.
The generation of renewable energy is projected to account for more than 50% of the total power generation post 2030’s. This marks a clear trend break from historical fossil fuel-based generation.

Electric transportation

As the role of intermittent resources in total generation increases, power systems see strong growth balancing needs. Particularly when solar and wind generation combined reach a share beyond 30% commented by McK. 2 Key reasons are the costs versus effectiveness on renewables, which are getting more in favor towards fossil fuel – building solar or wind capacity becomes more of interest. At the same time the costs on storage capacity and the innovation on other storage capacity will decline further. Thus making it interesting to switch a big part of road transportation to electric. This applies for either passenger cars or trucks for the coming 5 to 10 years, thus within the 2020’s.

Sizeable production capacity

The first decade of the 20th century, where we are shifting towards renewables, is nearly at an end. We now enter into the second phase the energy transition with a visible shift into ‘the decade of electricity’. The politics need to take decisive decisions and steps to clear the road to start up the big projects. We face challenging times where some cable makers will have difficulties to make the right choices in order to be ready for the years to come.

Our conclusion: For now, there is a strong believe of having an overcapacity on the production of power cables in the market. But with the above aspirations, we think that a sizeable production capacity is required to achieve the ambitions for the biggest energy transition we have ever challenged.

More information?

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