Global electricity demand growth, which slowed to 3% year-on-year in 2025 from 4.4% the previous year, will increase at an average annual rate of 3.6% between 2026 and 2030, driven by higher consumption in industry, electric vehicles, air conditioning, and data centers for AI, according to forecasts from the International Energy Agency (IEA).
The agency, affiliated with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), expects electricity demand to grow “at least 2.5 times faster than overall energy demand until 2030” and predicts that annual demand growth over the next five years “will be 50% higher on average than in the previous decade.”
While emerging and developing economies remain the main drivers of electricity demand growth, the IEA emphasizes that consumption in advanced economies is also increasing, after 15 years of stagnation, to meet demand related to AI and advanced industrial manufacturing.
Emerging economies thus remain the main pillar of demand growth, accounting for almost 80% of the additional electricity consumption until 2030, with China remaining the largest contributor to the increase in consumption, at around 50%.
In fact, over the next five years, the Asian giant will add demand equivalent to the total electricity consumption of the European Union today, with an average annual growth of 4.9%, close to the 5% growth of 2025, but slower than its average of 6.5% over the last decade. The IEA also forecasts that the share of India and Southeast Asia in electricity demand growth among emerging economies will increase substantially by 2030, driven by strong economic growth and rising demand for air conditioning, which will boost both annual consumption and peak demand.
Meanwhile, electricity demand growth in advanced economies is accelerating, and in 2025, consumption in advanced economies accounted for nearly 20% of global electricity demand growth, up from 17% in 2024, and the IEA expects this share to remain close to the 20% level on average over the forecast period.
In the United States, electricity demand increased by 2.1% in 2025 and is projected to grow by almost 2% annually until 2030, with approximately half of the total increase driven by the rapid expansion of data centers, while in the EU, after growth of less than 1% in 2025, electricity demand is expected to grow by around 2% annually until 2030.
“At a time of great uncertainty in energy markets, it is clear that global electricity demand is growing much more strongly than in the last decade,” said Keisuke Sadamori, Director of Energy Markets and Security at the IEA, who added that meeting this demand will require a 50% increase in annual investment in electricity grids by 2030.
“In this ‘Age of Electricity’, the increase in global energy consumption until 2030 is projected to be equivalent to the sum of more than two European Unions,” he added.
GENERATION
The IEA report notes that global electricity generation from renewable sources, driven by record deployment of solar photovoltaic power, “is on track to surpass coal-fired generation, after practically equaling it in 2025,” while nuclear power production also reached a new record. In this regard, renewable energy production is projected to grow by approximately 1,000 terawatt-hours (TWh) annually until 2030, with solar photovoltaic energy accounting for more than 600 TWh of this increase.
The IEA forecasts that renewable energy generation will increase at an annual rate of 8% over its projection horizon and expects that renewable and nuclear energy combined will “generate 50% of global electricity by 2030, compared to 42% today.”
Furthermore, to complement renewable and nuclear energy production, gas-fired generation is projected to grow by an average of 2.6% annually until 2030, a rate similar to that of 2019 and significantly higher than the average annual rate of approximately 1.4% observed over the past five years.
“During the 2026-2030 period, renewable energy, natural gas, and nuclear power are expected to collectively meet the additional global electricity demand,” the agency emphasizes, noting that coal will remain the primary fuel source for power generation.
