Non-OECD Asia Creeping Up On OECD As World’s Largest Consumer Of Energy

According to new figures from the International Energy Agency, non-OECD Asia is quickly moving up on the OECD as the world’s largest energy consumer.

Specifically, as can be seen in the graph below, while the combined percentage of global energy consumption between the OECD (including Japan and Korea) and the rest of Asia (including China) between 1971 and 2014 has remained approximately the same, the makeup of that consumption has changed dramatically, with Asia now only 3 percentage-points behind the OECD in terms of Total Primary Energy Supply (TPES) — a measurement of total energy use.

The figures come courtesy of two new reports published by the International Energy Agency (IEA) this week — World energy Balances and World Energy Statistics. The two new reports for the first time combine the IEA’s OECD and non-OECD Energy Balances and Statistics reports, given the increasing global nature of energy use figures. Together, the two reports contain detailed data on 150 countries and regions, and will be published in full toward the end of the month.

In addition to regional TPES, the report also highlighted the global annual change in energy production by fuel. The reports show that global energy production reached 13,800 million tonnes of oil equivalent (Mtoe) in 2014, up 1.5% from 2013 figures, with fossil fuels accounting for 81%, 0.4% lower than in 2013 — this, despite increases in oil (2.1%), coal (0.8%), and natural gas (0.6%) production.

Nevertheless, production of renewable energy grew even faster than fossil fuels did, with hydro production up 2.5%, accounting for 2.4% of the global production, wind was up 11%, and solar was up 35%, and together accounted for approximately 1% of global energy production. Biofuels and waste accounted for 10.2% of world energy production, and nuclear 4.7%.

Preliminary 2015 global country level production data showed a slowdown in fossil fuel production, growing only 0.5% higher than in 2014 — a trend we hope will continue.

This slowdown in growth in fossil fuels is definitely being helped along by the lack of growth in fossil fuels throughout Asia. While coal remains the most consumed fuel in Asia, its growth has slowed dramatically, as can be seen below. Similarly oil and gas have seen slowdowns, in contrast to nuclear, hydro, biofuels, and other renewables such as solar and wind.

More information from the World energy Balances and World Energy Statistics reports can be found here, and CleanTechnica will be covering the publication of the full report later this month.