Can Cheap Batteries Deliver COP31’s 35% Electrification Goal?
Oil Crashes 9% as Trump and Vance Blame Iran War for Midterm Rout Brazil's ambitious data center expansion… Haley Zaremba is an energy journalist and researcher with more than a decade of professional experience covering global energy systems, land and natural resources, and… Electrification will be the major focus of the upcoming COP31 United Nations climate conference, to be held in Antalya, Türkiye, from November 9 to 20, 2026.
The host country will invite the attending nations to sign onto a voluntary pledge to reach 35 percent electrification on a global level by 2035.
Just a year ago, this target may have seemed overly ambitious, but now, experts say that a number of factors, including volatile oil and gas markets stemming from the war in Iran, paired with enormous advances in clean energy technologies, have put that goal within “striking distance.” The months-long closure of the Strait of Hormuz has catalyzed the clean energy transition and the rate of electrification around the world.
Before the United States and Israel began their military offensive in Iran back in February of this year, one fifth of the world’s oil and gas trade flowed through the Strait of Hormuz.
Its abrupt closure therefore sent global oil and gas markets into turmoil and sent energy-importing countries around the world scrambling for alternatives, especially ones that they could produce and control on their home soil.
And, just like that,renewable energy became the new face of energy security.
“Wind and solar cannot be embargoed, blockaded, or shut off by a foreign power,” David Frykman, General Partner at Stockholm-based venture capital group Norrsken, wrote in anop-edfor Fortune earlier this year.
“Every terawatt-hour of domestic renewable generation is a terawatt-hour that no adversary can weaponize.” But there is another, quieter force that has made this rapid global pivot toward renewable energies possible – the energy storage boom.
Energy storage is critical to ensure grid stability in the face of rapid electrification and the increasing representation of intermittent energy sources like wind and solar power in national energy mixes.
Major advances in the sector in recent years have made battery storage more affordable and more scalable than ever before – just in time for the world’s most recent bout of ‘fossilflation.’ “What's really become a game-changer in the past two years is the rapid deployment of large-scale batteries that can hang onto ever larger amounts of power to be used throughout the day to smooth out demand and avoid overtaxing the grid,” Forbes wrote in a Mondayreport.
The second quarter of this year saw the United States’ largest-ever energy storage expansion, at 20.2 gigawatt-hours of additional capacity, according to areportby the Solar Energy Industries Association and Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.
That puts this year’s total additions at 30.8 GWh – and counting.
| Product | Price | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Brent Crude | $102.14/bbl | +0.34% |
| WTI Crude | $96.90/bbl | +0.21% |
| EN590 Diesel | $846/MT | +0.18% |
| Jet Fuel A-1 | $1090/MT | +0.55% |
| Mazut M100 | $450/MT | -0.15% |
| Bitumen 60/70 | $470/MT | +0.08% |
| Sulphur Gran 99.5% | $470/MT | -0.44% |
| Urea 46% Gran | $650/MT | +1.12% |
| NPK 16-16-16 | $460/MT | -0.28% |
| Nat Gas TTF | $15.42/MMBtu | +0.92% |
Comments
Post a Comment