Energy Agency Misleading on Renewables: Report

A number of figures from both the scientific and political spheres have alleged that the International Energy Agency’s connections with the nuclear, gas and oil industries are getting in the way of the worldwide conversion to renewable power.

The International Energy Agency provides energy-related advice to a whole host of international governments but, according to Energy Watch – the producers of a new report – the information issued by the IEA is misleading where renewable are concerned.

Wind Power Benefits

Furthermore, said the report, the advice provided by the IAE has, time and time again, not done justice to the full electricity benefits provided by wind power and that, on the subject of wind energy, the body displays “ignorance and contempt. “ At the same time, it said, oil nuclear and gas are described by the IEA as “irreplaceable.”

The potential of wind power, according to the report, has really taken off over the past few years and if this growth continues it, along with solar power, will soon be rivalling conventional power generating sources.

The author of the report is Swiss MP Rudolf Rechsteiner. In his words, the IEA was impaired by “institutional blindness” when it came to renewable energy.

“They [the IEA] are delaying the change to a renewable world”, he said.

“They continue touting nuclear and carbon-capture-and-storage, classical central solutions, instead of a more neutral approach, which would favour new solutions."

The report adds, on the subject of wind power: “by comparing historic forecasts on wind power with reality, we find that all official forecasts were much too low.”

Electricity Forecasts

A little over a decade ago, the IEA forecast that, by 2020, the total amount of electricity generated by the wind would reach 47.4 gigawatts – a figure that, in fact, was attained in 2004. In 2002, the projected 2020 figure was reset to 104 gigawatts and, again, this has been reached (and gone beyond) well ahead of time.

"The IEA numbers”, said the report, “...were neither empirically nor theoretically based."

The most recently-published projection issued by the IEA is its World Energy Outlook, released last year. In this, it writes that, between 2006 and 2015, wind energy will increase five times over, but, after this, it will dip significantly. This model is referred to in the Energy Watch report as a “virtual stagnation”, with “no arguments...given [as to] why the wind sector should suffer such a crisis by 2015 and after.”

“The IEA outlook remains attached to oil, gas, coal and nuclear, and renewables seem to have no chance to reverse this trend”, the report writes in its conclusion, adding: “This organisation… has been deploying misleading data on renewables for many years..."

No comment has yet emerged from the IEA on Energy Watch’s published allegations.