NEWS & INSIGHTS | Opinion
Renewables lead the way in global energy growth
Luca Corradi
Luca works to bring “the outside in”, connecting innovators and academics across sectors and disciplines, to explore the latest technologies that could be adopted to address oil and gas industry challenges. Leading The Net Zero Technology Centre’s horizon scanning activity, he identifies emerging technology trends, cutting through the hype to identify potential areas of impact and application. With a background in business and organisational change leadership, Luca has developed a strong network and is passionate about harnessing this to deliver the next generation of the net zero energy industry.
Outside work Luca loves reading, music and travel. He is married with two young daughters and a dog. He enjoys the rare motorbike ride in Scotland and even rarer ski trip on the Alps.
More to net zero news:
Chief Technology Officer at NZTC, Luca Corradi, and his team closely monitor the global net zero landscape. They follow the trends, policies, investments, and technological innovations that, together, bring the world closer to its shared climate goals. Learn more about our horizon scanning service. This week, Luca and his team explore Project Willow at Grangemouth, Clyde Hydrogen’s decoupled electrolysis milestone and look at IEA’s recent Global Energy Review.
Project Willow – pioneering low-carbon technologies at Grangemouth
Grangemouth stands as one of Scotland’s major manufacturing centres, contributing 6% of Scotland’s net greenhouse gas emissions and 27% of Scotland’s total industrial emissions. Therefore, in response to Petroineos’ announcement to convert the Grangemouth refinery into a fuels import and distribution terminal, Project Willow was formed to identify and deploy low-carbon technologies effectively at Grangemouth.
As a result, Project Willow identified nine potential projects that could significantly enhance low-carbon manufacturing across the UK and create a positive future for Grangemouth. The projects are:
Wastes
- Hydrothermal plastic recycling of hard-to-recycle plastics into naptha and vapour for plastic production
- Dissolution plastic recycling converting waste plastic into polyethylene/polypropylene for plastic products and packaging
- Bacterial fermentation of carbohydrate-rich waste material into acetone, butanol or ethanol for chemical products
Bio-feedstock
- Breaking down and fermenting Scottish timber into bioethanol
- Anaerobic digestion where organic waste and biogas is upgraded to produce biomethane
- Converting Scottish cover crops into SAF and renewable diesel using low carbon hydrogen
Conduit for offshore wind projects – by providing industrial offtake for green hydrogen produced by offshore wind
- Replacing natural gas combustion with low carbon hydrogen
- Producing e-methanol & converting it to SAF from low-carbon hydrogen • Producing ammonia from low-carbon hydrogen for shipping and chemicals
Project willow aims to evaluate various low-carbon technologies that could create a positive future for Grangemouth, and identifies policy and regulatory actions that could stimulate private sector investment.
Image Source: scotent-uat-sdi-website.azurewebsites.net
Clyde Hydrogen Systems achieves milestone with decoupled electrolysis process
Clyde hydrogen has successfully produced hydrogen continuously for the first time using its prototype innovative decoupled electrolysis process. Specifically, the test involved operating scaled-up versions of the two main sub-systems together under manual control. Furthermore, Clyde Hydrogen is on track to deliver a fully integrated pilot system in 2025. Additionally, it plans to scale up to a commercial demonstrator, with the first market-ready product targeted for released by 2027.
Clyde Hydrogen is backed by pre-seed funding from Zinc, the University of Glasgow and grants from NZTC and the Scottish Government’s Hydrogen Innovation Scheme.
The technology decouples hydrogen and oxygen production, eliminating the safety risk of oxygen and hydrogen mixing and removing the requirement for a complex membrane structure. Consequently, this allows the stack to operate at low load factors and under fluctuating supply loads. Additionally, their technology does not require deionized water, enabling the use of tap or seawater and reducing water consumption by up to two thirds. The use of a liquid mediator provides built-in storage capability and since the hydrogen production step does not require power, hydrogen can be produced even when solar power is unavailable.
Clyde Hydrogen have successfully produced hydrogen via its prototype decoupled electrolyser for the first time
Image source: clydehydrogen.com
Global Energy Demand Growth in 2024: renewables lead the way
In 2024, global energy demand grew by 2.2%, which is faster than the average rate over the past decade. Renewables led the way, accounting for 38% of the energy supply growth. This was followed by natural gas as 28%, coal as 15%, oil as 11% and nuclear at 8%. Notably, oil demand growth slowed significantly in 2024, increasing by just 0.8% compared to 1.9% in 2023. Consequently, oil’s share of total energy demand fell below 30% for the first time. Moreover, global electricity consumption rose by more than twice the annual average increase over the past decade. This surge was driven by increased cooling demand, growing industrial consumption, electrification of transport and data centre expansion.
Global demand growth, 2024
Graph source: IEA Global Energy Review 2025to
Emerging and developing economies accounted for over 80% of global energy demand growth. China’s energy demand surged the most, but its growth rate slowed to under 3%, which is half the rate seen in 2023. Meanwhile, after several years of decline, the energy demand growth of advanced economies increased by almost 1%, with the EU returning to growth for the first time since 2017.
Additionally, CO2 emissions from the energy sector increased by 0.8% or 300 MtCO2. One key driver of this increase was extreme weather. If the weather in 2024 had been as hot as 2023, the second-hottest year on record, about half of the increase in global emissions would have been avoided.
IEA’s Global Energy Review looks at trends across the energy sector in 2024
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