In 2016, the World Energy Council and its scenarios partners, Accenture Strategy Energy and the Paul Scherrer Institute, published a new set of World Energy Scenarios describing three different plausible pathways for energy transition. The scenarios adopted a time horizon to 2060 to focus on the responses to the challenge of global climate change.
Over the last three years, this scenario framework has been validated by input from the Council’s extensive energy expert member community and annual surveys of energy leaders. The three scenarios are perceived by these experts to be more relevant than ever. Discussion of member input has added interesting nuances to each scenario archetype. In this round, the Council has adopted a medium-term time horizon of 2040 and focused on the implications of broader and disruptive innovation for the energy industry.
The 2019 scenarios are summarised as follows:
- Modern Jazz. A market-led, digitally disrupted world with faster-paced and more uneven economic growth. Recent signals suggest that this entrepreneurial future might accelerate clean energy access on both global and local scales, whilst presenting new systems integration, cyber security and data privacy challenges.
- Unfinished Symphony. A strong, coordinated, policy-led world, with long-term planning and united global action to address connected challenges, including inequitable access and affordable decarbonisation. Recent signals suggest increased activism and commitment to addressing climate change at the sub-national level, and an expansion of the focus from climate change mitigation to a broader, socially inclusive and economically affordable sustainable development agenda.
- Hard Rock. A fragmented world with inward-looking policies, lower growth and less global cooperation. Recent signals, such as the rise of populist leaders and uncertainty about the outlook for international cooperation, imply that this scenario is also evolving into a story of regionally firmer security foundations rather than total fragmentation and “harder rocks.”
- Modern Jazz: 599 TWh by 2060, a 4.6% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the period of 2015-2060
- Unfinished Symphony: 859 TWh by 2060, a 5.4% CAGR
- Hard Rock Power: 365 TWh by 2060, a 3.4% CAGR