Caixin News Agency, April 27th (Editor Shi Zhengcheng) Starting from this Sunday, energy and climate ministers from G7 countries will gather together. According to the draft documents obtained by the media in advance, the matters that the ministers will discuss next also have a significant impact on the capital market.
This meeting is also the first time energy ministers have met since the United Nations Climate Conference in December last year. At a meeting held in Dubai, they agreed to double energy efficiency and triple renewable energy capacity by 2030.
Facing the core pain points of new energy
The rapid development of renewable energy in recent years has also shown humanity a feasible path to replace fossil fuels. However, there are still significant problems here - renewable energy generated by photovoltaic and wind power is completely dependent on the weather. Once the sun is not exposed and the wind is not blowing, the guarantee of energy supply will be problematic.
So in order to avoid intermittent "no electricity available" situations after the energy transition, G7 countries are promoting a global goal. According to the draft documents of the meeting, G7 climate ministers have agreed in principle to set the global energy storage capacity for 2030 at 1500 gigawatts, which is more than six times higher than the 230 gigawatts in 2022.
The document shows that ministers have proposed using batteries, hydrogen energy, water, or other methods to store electricity.
According to a G7 government official involved in negotiations, energy storage targets are a good solution, indicating that countries are taking the Dubai agreement seriously. Energy storage aims to preserve excess electricity from renewable energy production through batteries and other means, and release it when needed.
It is reported that various countries are still engaged in intense discussions on controversial areas such as coal, energy efficiency, and methane targets.
Taking the coal issue that has not yet reached a consensus among countries as an example, the draft mentions that countries should phase out coal-fired power plants that have not been able to implement carbon capture as soon as possible after 2035. The United States announced new regulations on Thursday, requiring coal-fired power plants planned to continue operating in the country after 2039 to capture or reduce 90% of carbon dioxide emissions by 2032. At the same time, Japan is particularly opposed to measures to vigorously phase out coal.
Another controversial goal in the draft is to promote the cessation of subsidies for overseas fossil fuel development in the world's wealthiest countries, which is also the largest source of public funding in this field. Under the OECD framework, there are differences between the United States and the European Union on the issue of prohibiting the organization's countries from providing export credit and guarantees for oil, natural gas, and coal mining projects.
Repeatedly mentioning batteries
According to the draft document, G7 countries will "promote the development and deployment of static battery storage to improve storage efficiency and reduce storage costs," and "encourage diversified, sustainable, safe, and transparent battery storage supply chains.".
The International Energy Agency also stated this week that the "rapid expansion" of batteries is crucial for achieving the energy goals of COP28. The institution had also anticipated that batteries would account for 90% of the increase in new energy storage in the future.
The institution's research found that the growth rate of batteries exceeded almost all other clean energy technologies in 2023. At the same time, the cost of batteries has also decreased by over 90% in the past 15 years, making it the fastest declining clean energy source among all.