IEA REWP Workshop: The Role of Storage beyond Electricity

The IEA’s Renewable Energy Working Party (REWP) is concerned with the worrying slow overall uptake of renewable energy in the energy mix, reflecting slow penetration in the building, industry and transport sectors. Globally, modern renewables are expected to account for just 12.4% of total energy consumption by 2023, up from 10.9% at the end of 2018. This lag calls for a renewed effort on the development of appropriate policy instruments, to learn from the success story of solar PV and wind and to significantly expand the deployment of renewable energy in all end-use sectors, including transportation, industry and for heating & cooling in buildings. Addressing energy system integration issues by adopting a holistic approach beyond just grid and electricity market integration, to address heating and cooling in the building sector, the industry and transport sectors, and ensuring investment in enabling technologies and infrastructure such as networks, storage and demand-side response measures when relevant.

REWP wants to explore with the IEA Technology Collaboration Programmes (TCPs) and with industry leaders how to enable a much stronger increase RES in all sectors. For this, REWP sees a need for extremely well interconnected energy infrastructures complemented by energy storage, conversion to energy carriers, changes in users consumption patterns etc.