IEA repeats warnings as energy transition pace increases
- 25 March 2025
International Energy Agency director Fatih Birol says the footsteps of the coming global age of electricity are getting louder. Clearer, too, are signs that nuclear fuel, copper and other critical material supply deficits could hamper the world’s energy transition and energy-hungry technology advances from the end of this decade.
Speaking at the launch of the IEA’s Global Energy Review 2025, Birol repeated last year’s agency warnings about new mineral and metal supply not emerging fast enough to meet looming demand step-change and to help diversify supply of vital new-energy and technology minerals.
“We see one very clear trend: electricity growth,” Birol said.
“Global electricity demand increased two times higher than the global energy demand [in 2024].”
The IEA described last year’s 4.3% increase in global electricity demand as step change from the previous year’s 2.5%, with the 2.7% average pace of electricity demand growth from 2010 to 2023 double the rate of total energy demand growth over that period. Electrification picked up across sectors, raising electricity demand in most major economies in 2024, the agency said.
It said continued rapid adoption of clean energy technologies was limiting emissions growth, avoiding 2.6 billion tonnes of additional CO2 emissions per year.
Renewable energy installations, electrification and nuclear power expansion were all boosting demand for minerals, Birol said.
“Oil is today the most strategic energy commodity but as IEA has highlighted since year 2021 continuously, critical minerals are becoming [day] by day very important in the energy business,” he said.
“It is the copper. It is the lithium. It is the platinum. It is the cobalt.
“We are seeing a concentration of the mining in a few … countries. But it's not all. We also see that the refining and processing of these critical minerals are concentrated [narrowly].
“In the energy world we believe in a magic word – diversification – to reduce the risks.
“There is a need for diversification of mining and refining and processing and [to] increase the efforts for recycling of critical minerals. Otherwise we are going to see serious challenges.
“Our latest analysis on copper highlights the fact that around 2030 – if we look at the copper demand coming from the energy sector and the mining and processing FIDs being taken on investment projects – around 2030 we see a significant deficit of supply for copper. And if we consider that [for a new copper] mining project from A to Z the lead time is about 17 years on average, it is a major challenge.
“So it is one of the reasons why I’ve said, energy security today is not only focusing on oil and gas.”
Uranium and nuclear fuel are also increasingly under the energy security spotlight. The IEA 2024 review said 80% of the growth in global electricity generation was provided by renewable sources and nuclear power compared with two-thirds of 2023 generation growth. Together they contributed 40% of total generation for the first time with renewables alone supplying 32%. New renewables installations hit record levels for the 22nd consecutive year. About 700GW of total renewable capacity was added in 2024, nearly 80% of which was solar PV.
“We also see that the nuclear is coming strongly,” Birol said.
“We expect 2025 – this year – we will see the highest nuclear electricity generation in history: the [new] peak of nuclear electricity generation.”
The IEA said more than 7GW of nuclear power capacity was brought online in 2024, 33% higher than 2023 and the fifth-highest jump in 30 years. That brought total world nuclear capacity to 420GW. Of six nuclear projects completed last year – all large-scale reactors – two were in China and one each in France, India, the United Arab Emirates and the United States. “Electricity generation from nuclear in 2024 rose by 100TWh, equalling the largest increase this century outside of the post-Covid rebound,” the IEA said.
Nine nuclear reactor construction starts in 2024 was 50% above the previous year. Those facilities will add 11GW of new capacity.
China is again, or still, leading the way on most new-energy expansion fronts.
All six of its nuclear reactor starts in 2024 featured the country’s own designs.
“Over the past five years all nuclear construction starts have used either Chinese or Russian designs,” the IEA said.
“As of February 2025 there were a total of 62 nuclear reactors under construction in 15 countries around the world with a total capacity of nearly 70GW. China accounted for nearly half of all nuclear capacity under construction in the world.
“Across advanced economies a total of 9.5GW is under construction, including two reactors in Japan, two in Korea, two in the United Kingdom and one in Slovakia.”
China also made up almost two-thirds of all renewable capacity grid connection in 2024. Solar PV capacity additions (DC, or direct current) reached more than 340GW, 30% up on 2023. Utility-scale plants drove more than 60% of China’s PV expansion, followed by distributed commercial and industrial installations. The country surpassed its 2030 goal of 1200GW of combined solar PV and wind capacity in mid-2024, six years early.
Electric car sales continued to rise globally in 2024, according to the IEA, increasing by more than 25% to more than 17 million units, up from below 14 million units in 2023.
“EV sales accounted for over 20% of all car sales in 2024,” it said. “China was the leading driver of growth, accounting for almost two-thirds of global electric car sales in 2024. The country’s electric vehicle sales experienced an impressive annual growth rate of nearly 40%. A large share of this growth came from plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, where sales saw an 80% increase, compared with a nearly 20% rise in battery electric vehicles.”
