How coronavirus has impacted the world energy industry

The bru­tal shock of coro­n­avirus has had a deeply uneven impact on com­mu­ni­ties and economies around the world. The world ener­gy indus­try is no excep­tion. 

The cri­sis has high­light­ed the impor­tance of ener­gy in all our lives, for homes, health and dig­i­tal pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. It has also test­ed the resilience of grid sys­tems and spurred new invest­ment in deep­er decar­bon­i­sa­tion of heat and trans­port sec­tors. 

Access to mod­ern ener­gies is eas­i­ly tak­en for grant­ed; afford­abil­i­ty, reli­a­bil­i­ty and equi­ty mat­ters are fre­quent­ly over­looked. Despite free sun­shine, house­hold ener­gy debt, fuel pover­ty and even defaults on mini-grid pay­ments are increas­ing­ly evi­dent. 

Only the lucky few have abun­dant ener­gy to light, heat or cool their homes. Hun­dreds of mil­lions live with zero access to elec­tric­i­ty and bil­lions more peo­ple lack ener­gy for clean cook­ing, san­i­ta­tion and bet­ter liveli­hoods. The gap between those with abun­dant access and those with­out enough ener­gy is widen­ing.    

Should soci­eties bet on tech­no-fix­es to pro­vide the cure all? Many green ener­gy solu­tions are in their infan­cy and there is lit­tle thought about new and dif­fer­ent future ener­gy needs. Nei­ther tech­nol­o­gy pro­mot­ers nor cap­i­tal mar­ket investors focus on the human pace of the “race to zero”. Afford­abil­i­ty and ener­gy jus­tice mat­ters are mobil­is­ing more peo­ple and com­mu­ni­ties, espe­cial­ly those impact­ed by tran­si­tion, to become involved. 

The time to humanise energy

Polit­i­cal and pol­i­cy dis­cus­sions are start­ing to touch on the new social ener­gy agen­da and it will be impor­tant to look beyond peak demand for coal and oil, and address win­ners and losers, and meet grow­ing demand.  

We can human­ise ener­gy and we must do so urgent­ly. The flows of clean, afford­able, reli­able and equi­table ener­gy are the lifeblood of progress. Secur­ing clean ener­gy and flex­i­ble stor­age for every­one will not be easy. It can be achieved through invest­ment in renew­ables and oth­er clean ener­gy friends, net-zero emis­sions heat, pow­er and liq­uid fuels. 

The race to zero ignores this nuance and risks extreme polar­i­sa­tion between green-only ener­gy win­ners and many more losers. Whose ener­gy deci­sions are being dri­ven by con­cerns about the end of this week, the end of the world or both? 

The scale and scope of the exist­ing ener­gy sys­tem and mate­ri­al­i­ty of the renew­able pow­er rev­o­lu­tion are not well under­stood. It is frus­trat­ing to be engaged in so many debates which reduce the “tut­ti fruiti” of mod­ern ener­gies and their uses to the apples or pears of solar and wind pow­er. Not every­thing can be elec­tri­fied, yet. Lack of ener­gy lit­er­a­cy, includ­ing among some investors, pol­i­cy-shapers and jour­nal­ists, is a risk to the future of human­i­ty.

Building forward together

Peo­ple, new uses and demand dynam­ics are miss­ing in ener­gy out­looks. We owe it to future gen­er­a­tions to main­tain a healthy plan­et. Let us inspire chil­dren to keep reach­ing for the stars. Ener­gies for fly­ing cars, mete­orite min­ing, quan­tum warp dri­ve engines are excit­ing pos­si­bil­i­ties.

Build­ing for­ward togeth­er will involve recov­ery along mul­ti­ple path­ways and ben­e­fits from a new mind­set of cus­tomer cen­tric­i­ty and demand-dri­ven solu­tions. There needs to be a safe space for hon­est dis­cus­sion of the full costs to soci­ety, strand­ed com­mu­ni­ties and the “more ener­gy” impli­ca­tions of new human and eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment mod­els. We can offer a safe space, as the world’s old­est, neu­tral and inde­pen­dent world ener­gy organ­i­sa­tion, to address these polit­i­cal undis­cuss­able ques­tions. 

By the Unit­ed Nations Cli­mate Change Con­fer­ence, COP26, in Novem­ber, the work on new met­rics for the “S” in envi­ron­men­tal, social and gov­er­nance, or ESG, report­ing by ener­gy investors and firms should be con­clud­ing, not start­ing. And by the end of 2021, we can all share sto­ries of suc­cess in human­is­ing ener­gy, which inspire future gen­er­a­tions of ener­gy entre­pre­neurs.