The International Energy Agency (IEA) has released an annual report called "Electricity 2026" these days, which makes people feel uneasy after reading it: in the coming years, the global thirst for electricity will be much more intense than we imagine.

Let's take a look at the most intuitive number: from now until 2030, global electricity demand is expected to increase by over 3.5% annually. What is this concept? The IEA made an analogy - this growth rate is at least 2.5 times the overall energy demand growth rate. By 2030, just the increase in electricity consumption will be equivalent to two more EU countries using electricity out of thin air!

Who is crazily 'swallowing electricity'?

Don't just focus on Bitcoin, the real power consumers are actually around us.

The report clearly states: industrial recovery, electric vehicles (EVs) running on the streets, air conditioning becoming increasingly indispensable in tropical regions, and a new "electric tiger" - data centers and artificial intelligence. Especially for AI, training large models is a real burning of electricity, and this wave of demand has just emerged and will continue to rise later.

The 'old new alternation' on the supply side

The good news is that the electricity we need is turning green.

There is a key milestone in the report: by 2025, the global renewable energy generation will almost equal coal-fired power generation. This is not a prediction, it is a fact that is happening. Driven by the crazy stocking of solar panels and the breaking of records in nuclear energy, it is expected that by 2030, green electricity combined with nuclear power will support half of the global electricity market (accounting for 50%).

Relatively speaking, the days of coal are not easy. Although the absolute value may still be rising, the market share will be tightly suppressed and is expected to fall back to the level of 2021. It is precisely because of the rise of green power that although electricity consumption has skyrocketed, global carbon emissions from power generation can remain roughly stable before 2030- this can be considered fortunate amidst misfortune.

The biggest concern: can the power grid keep up?

There is a huge gap in the 'money bag' here.

Emerging economies are the engines of growth, that's not a problem; Even developed economies have started to see an increase in electricity consumption after 15 years of stagnation. But the question is, can the power grid withstand this overwhelming flow of electricity?

The IEA deliberately tapped the blackboard in its bulletin: by 2030, annual investment in the power grid must increase by another 50% on the current basis. Building a power station alone is not enough, we also need to build roads (power grids). If the safety and resilience of the power grid are not taken seriously, even if electricity can be generated, it will not be delivered to users, resulting in widespread power outage anxiety. Keywords: electricity demand, power grid development

To put it simply, the next five years will not only be about competing for the production capacity of photovoltaic panels and wind turbines, but also about competing for whose power grid is more resistant to manufacturing. The big test of the power system has just begun.Editor/Cheng Liting