The transition of the global energy system is supported by substantial investments across a wide range of energy sources and vectors. The rapid growth in wind and solar requires increased investment relative to the recent past. Despite declining demand over the outlook, continuing investment in upstream oil and gas is needed to offset base declines.
In addition to investment to support the production of different fuels and energy vectors, the energy pathways envisaged in Current Trajectory and Net Zero require substantial levels of capital expenditure across a wide range of energy infrastructure, such as electricity transmission and distribution, pipelines for low carbon hydrogen and CO2, and charging networks to support electric vehicles. This investment in energy infrastructure is not modelled explicitly in the Outlook.
The investment estimates considered here refer only to investments in wind and solar capacity and upstream oil and gas production. The assumptions underlying the implied investment requirements, and the associated uncertainties, are described in the Annex.
Any pathway towards a low carbon energy system requires substantial increases in the use of a range of minerals critical for the infrastructure and assets supporting the transition.
The re-engineering of the global energy system to produce, distribute and employ growing levels of low carbon energy requires increasing amounts of certain minerals critical for the infrastructure and assets supporting the transition. It is possible to use the scenarios to identify two separate sources of demand associated with the expansion of low carbon energy over the outlook:
• Growth of low carbon power as the energy system electrifies, driven by an increasing share of low carbon generation. This source of demand includes the extension of transmission and distribution grids, the rapid growth in wind and solar capacity, and the use of batteries to provide a source of flexibility as the share of variable renewable energy sources increases (see Power sector).
• The electrification of road transport and the associated expansion in the use of batteries. The number of electric vehicles grows to between 1.2 and 2.1 billion vehicles by 2050 in Current Trajectory and Net Zero respectively, implying an increased demand for annual battery capacity within road transport of between 9-16 TWh.
These growing demands from low carbon energy, together with the broader economic expansion envisaged over the outlook, have significant implications for a range of different minerals, including copper, lithium, and nickel.