While global coal demand looks set to rise for the second year in a row in 2018, it is forecast to remain stable over the next five years, as declines in Europe and North America are offset by strong growth in India and Southeast Asia, according to the International Energy Agency’s latest coal market report, Coal 2018.
While global coal demand looks set to rise for the second year in a row in 2018, it is forecast to remain stable over the next five years, as declines in Europe and North America are offset by strong growth in India and Southeast Asia, according to the International Energy Agency’s latest coal market report, Coal 2018.
Air quality and climate policies, coal divestment campaigns, phase-out announcements, declining costs of renewables and abundant supplies of natural gas are all putting pressure on coal. As a result, coal’s contribution to the global energy mix is forecast to decline slightly from 27% in 2017 to 25% by 2023.
But coal demand grows across much of Asia due to its affordability and availability. India sees the largest increase of any country, although the rate of growth, at 3.9% per year, is slowing, dampened by a large-scale expansion of renewables and the use of supercritical technology in new coal power plants. Significant increases in coal use are also expected in Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia and Pakistan.
Read more at International Energy Agency
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