Danish Energy Agency: Simultaneous Growth In Electric Cars Sales & Fossil Fuel Use

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According to Ingeniøren, the latest projection of energy consumption in Denmark by the Danish Energy Agency shows there will be more electric cars on the roads in the country by 2030. However, although cars are generally becoming more fuel efficient, the use of fossil fuels in transport will continue to increase.

Minister of transportation Ole Birk Olesen believes the current technological breakthrough in electric cars will result in more sales than the Danish Energy Agency predicts, which is in line with several international reports concluding more optimistic  deployment scenarios of electric cars.

bnef_ev
Image credit: Bloomberg based on figures from Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BP, Exxon, OPEC, IEA — via Ingeniøren

Well, Denmark is known as the land of confusion regarding EVs, with record low sales and at the same time record high numbers of Danes wanting more EVs on the road.

So, how will this small isolated market evolve? Ingeniøren present the numbers from the Danish Energy Agency:

The Danish Energy Agency has estimated that by 2030, 135,000 electric cars will travel the Danish roads, which corresponds to approximately 4 percent of the total stock of cars in Denmark.

Similarly, the proportion of fossil fuels in the transport sector — including ships, airplanes and trains — was expected to fall from 95% in 2017 to 92% by 2030.

However, the projection, which has just been published, also shows that the share of fossil fuels will probably not reach 92% of total energy consumption for transport, but only 93% by 2030.

The reason being an increase in energy consumption for road traffic of 6% from 2017 to 2030: The increase in energy consumption is due to the fact that the continuous improvement in energy efficiency does not offset the increase in the number of kilometers driven.

In other words, 93 percent of all transport in Denmark in 2030 will still be driven by fossil fuels.

Let’s hope not. It is notoriously difficult to predict the ketchup effect of EV sales, no matter what country you look at. Nobody thought Denmark would be so far behind by now, but on the other hand, nobody could have predicted the sudden shift in passenger car sales to electric propulsion happening in Norway.


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Jesper Berggreen

Jesper had his perspective on the world expanded vastly after having attended primary school in rural Africa in the early 1980s. And while educated a computer programmer and laboratory technician, working with computers and lab-robots at the institute of forensic medicine in Aarhus, Denmark, he never forgets what life is like having nothing. Thus it became obvious for him that technological advancement is necessary for the prosperity of all humankind, sharing this one vessel we call planet earth. However, technology has to be smart, clean, sustainable, widely accessible, and democratic in order to change the world for the better. Writing about clean energy, electric transportation, energy poverty, and related issues, he gets the message through to anyone who wants to know better. Jesper is founder of Lifelike.dk and a long-term investor in Tesla, Ørsted, and Vestas.

Jesper Berggreen has 241 posts and counting. See all posts by Jesper Berggreen