Nordic Energy Research

TRANSFORMING THE POWER SECTOR

CO2 emissions from power generation have been reduced by more than one-third during the last ten years. Deployment of wind power and a fuel shift from coal and gas to biomass have been key to this transformation.

BOOSTING BIOENERGY

Overall demand for bioenergy has been increasing slightly over the past ten years, particularly for biofuels used in transport. Nonetheless, bioenergy is still mainly used for heating in the Nordic countries. Moving forward, these limited bioenergy resources will have to be used for high-quality biofuels for heavy transport, industries and the chemical sector.

ELECTRIFICATION OF TRANSPORT

Electrification is the key measure of long-term CO2 reduction in the transport sector. Norway is the global leader in the deployment of EVs with a current market share exceeding 50%, yet on the Nordic level EV’s only make up 4% of the total car fleet.

ELECTRIFICATION OF HEAT SUPPLY

Electrification of heating will free up biomass resources for other purposes and facilitate efficient integration of wind and solar power. The Nordic countries have high shares of individual electric heat pumps and they have ambitions to scale up the role of electricity for district heating.

DECARBONISATION OF INDUSTRY

The Nordic region is relatively energy and material efficient. Both factors have been key for competitiveness. Exploitation of residual heat and further decarbonisation of the industrial sector represent major technological and political challenges. Energy related CO2 emissions have dropped 25% during the last 10 years.

ENERGY EFFICIENT & SMART BUILDINGS

The average energy demand of Nordic buildings has decreased only slightly over the last ten years, despite major potentials for energy renovation. However, CO2 emissions per square metre have dropped markedly on the back of a large decrease in the use of oil burners.

GREEN MOBILITY

An increased focus on liveability and climate change demands new solutions for urban transport. Nordic cities are developing cycling polices, investing in electric buses and trialling new concepts for mobility as a service. However, cars still account for approximately 85% of all inland passenger transport.

ENERGY STORAGE & CCS

The large hydro reservoirs provide the Nordic countries with excellent and cheap storage options, which are already efficiently utilised. In the future, these will probably need to be supplemented with chemical storage in the form of batteries or hydrogen-based fuels. Carbon capture and storage may prove the key to reducing industrial CO2 emissions or be applied to biomass combustion to generate negative CO2 emissions.

We at Nordic Energy Research would like to give you the opportunity to “dig into the details”. To make this possible, we have supplemented the report with a dataset for the figures in the report. These data can be used under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). Please, enjoy the Excel-files found in this Zip-folder.