Solar Energy Perspectives - IEA

Solar Energy Perspectives: Industry and transport
Transport
Even more than for industry, biomass and electrification would be the major vectors for
introducing large-scale renewable energy – and solar energy in particular - into the transport
sector. If used as an external energy source for processing the raw biomass to transport fuels,
solar could also increase the conversion efficiency and thus the available amount of liquid
biofuels. There seems to be little opportunity for direct solar use in the transport sector,
although the emergence of solar fuels may change the picture in the longer term.
Although electricity’s current share of transport fuel across all modes is between 1% and 2%
worldwide, its effective role in the transport of goods and people is significantly greater. It
runs most passenger or freight trains, tramways, trolleys and underground transport systems
around the world, not to mention elevators, which offer transport services in dense cities. The
discrepancy is due to the much higher energy efficiency of mass transit over individual
transport systems, and of rail-based over road-based freight systems. This adds to the greater
efficiency of electric systems versus fossil fuel systems at end-use level; for example, for
individual transport in light-duty vehicles, 1 kWh of electricity replaces about 3 kWh of
petroleum products.
The IEA scenarios project an impressive growth in the number of light-duty vehicles in the
world in the coming decades and in the related energy consumption and CO 2 emissions,
despite energy efficiency improvements. In the WEO 2010 “New Policy Scenario”, roughly
compatible with the countries’ pledges made in Copenhagen at the UN Conference on
Climate Change, sales of electric vehicles (EV) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV,
combining an internal combustion engine with electric traction and batteries) do not prevent
a steep increase in the global fleet of conventional cars with internal combustion engines
(Figure 5.6).
Figure 5.6 Passenger light-duty vehicle sales by type in the New Policies Scenario
Electric
Plug-in hybrid
Natural gas
Hybrid
Internal
combustion
engine
150
125
100
75
50
Million
25
0
1980 2000 2008 2015 2020 2025 2030 2035
Source: IEA analysis based on IEA, 2010b.
Key point
The global fleet of light-duty vehicles with internal combustion engines will continue to grow.
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© OECD/IEA, 2011