Long-Term Demand Forecasting in a Scenario of Energy Transition

Abstract

The energy transition from fossil fuels to carbon-free sources will be a big challenge in the coming decades. In this context, the long-term prediction of energy demand plays a key role in planning energy infrastructures and in adopting economic and energy policies. In this article, we aimed to forecast energy demand for Spain, mainly employing econometrics techniques. From information obtained from institutional databases, energy demand was decomposed into many factors and economy-related activity sectors, obtaining a set of disaggregated sequences of time-dependent values. Using time-series techniques, a long-term prediction was then obtained for each component. Finally, every element was aggregated to obtain the final long-term energy demand forecast. For the year 2030, an energy demand equivalent to 82 million tons of oil was forecast. Due to improvements in energy efficiency in the post-crisis period, a decoupling of economy and energy demand was obtained, with a 30% decrease in energy intensity for the period 2005–2030. World future scenarios show a significant increase in energy demand due to human development of less developed economies. For Spain, our research concluded that energy demand will remain stable in the next decade, despite the foreseen 2% annual growth of the nation’s economy. Despite the enormous energy concentration and density of fossil fuels, it will not be affordable to use them to supply energy demand in the future. The consolidation of renewable energies and increasing energy efficiency is the only way to satisfy the planet’s energy needs.