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Energy Transition

The year ahead for DNV’s energy forecasting

As the energy transition gathers speed, DNV’s energy forecasting services are in strong demand. We have expanded our forecasting team and will be undertaking several proprietary studies this year alongside our published reports. Together with a reprise of our recently-published Energy Transition Outlook we highlight below the reports we plan for 2022.

As UN Secretary General António Guterres stated in Glasgow in November: “COP 27 starts now!”  Urgent focus is needed on short and intermediate term targets, and above all, action.

2022 will see the global energy transition gathering speed, with record-breaking installations of renewable capacity above 300 GW and EV sales surging past 6 million units. 

In addition to the established drivers of the transition, not least the plummeting costs of renewables and battery storage, governments are looking to gear up their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), businesses are tightening their emissions reduction targets, and the financial world is pivoting away from hydrocarbons in favour of renewables at an unprecedented rate. We will explore all of these issues and more in variety of formats and publications throughout the year. 

Our main publications for 2022 are the following:


February 2022 – Industry Insights

Our Industry Insights explores the confidence, sentiment, and priorities for the energy industry in the year ahead. The research draws on DNV’s annual survey of more than 1,000 senior professionals and in-depth interviews with experts. It presents the view from across power and renewables, oil and gas, energy consumers, and specialists within energy technology, finance, and policy. From multi-year megatrends to one-off events, the eagerly-awaited 12th edition of the research captures the opportunities and challenges that are top of mind for the world’s leading energy companies. 


May/June 2022 – Hydrogen Deep Dive 

Drawing on early results from our 2022 Energy Transition Outlook, this report will take an in-depth look at how hydrogen is likely to compete for a meaningful share of the energy mix by 2050. Starting with techo-economic analysis of production (both SMR and electrolysis), we will examine storage, long-distance transport and transmission and distribution through to uptake in key demand sectors. Our analysis will include an overview of safety considerations as well as solutions for the optimization of hydrogen supply chains. 


September 2022 – Maritime Forecast to 2050 

Our report on the decarbonization of shipping with special focus on advising the industry on the transition to zero carbon fuels will be launched at the world’s leading maritime trade fair, SMM, in Hamburg in early September.


October 2022 – Energy Transition Outlook 2022 

Our flagship report will be launched in October. This year, we will place added focus on energy trade and the challenging parts of the energy system that cannot easily electrify and need to decarbonize through bioenergy, hydrogen and its derivatives. The main solution will still be green electricity, though, and this will be covered in detail, based on a thorough discussion of all the demand sectors. You can also look forward to more detailed regional reports on, amongst others, Europe, China, the Indian Subcontinent and region Middle East and North Africa, which this year will be hosting COP27. As a first this year, alongside the main forecast of where the world energy system is heading, we will co-publish our ‘Pathway to Net Zero Emissions’ scenario which sets out a roadmap for sectors and regions in securing a 1.5°C future.

Sverre Alvik

Accelerating policy and technology developments and the drive to set meaningful and measurable decarbonization targets have placed a spotlight on energy forecasting. It is critical to draw a distinction between scenarios– like our Pathway to Net Zero – that outline what is REQUIRED to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement, and well-researched and systematic forecasts, like our Energy Transition Outlook, that track how the energy transition is EXPECTED to unfold in the coming decades.

  • Sverre Alvik,
  • Director of DNV’s Energy Transition research unit

2021 in review

In case you missed them, we published the following reports last year:

All reports and all of our forecast data behind the Energy Transition Outlook

Download here