DNV's outlook has importers adding non-fossil energy more than three times as fast as exporters

DNV sets China, India and Europe against the Middle East, North America and Russia, and says the first group shifted toward non-fossil energy more than three times as fast ^[3]. Take the 2.2 and 0.7 points ^[2] and spread them over the five years: that is about 0.44 points a year for importers ^[17] against 0.14 for exporters ^[18], a gap of 1.5 points over the period ^[15] and a ratio of roughly 3.1 ^[16].

The report's text partly supports the idea that energy security now drives transition demand. Ditlev Engel, CEO of Energy Systems at DNV, said "Energy security is redrawing the map of the energy transition," ^[5] and the importers' numbers fit him. But the same outlook says falling costs are accelerating solar, onshore wind and batteries ^[8], and installed battery capacity is up 14-fold in five years ^[9]. The report does not say how much of the importers' 2.2 points came from security policy, how much from cost, or how much arrived after the Hormuz disruption began. In our view security is an accelerant in importing regions, and the evidence stops short of calling it the cause.

The security motive has not lifted every technology. DNV says the technologies needed for hard-to-electrify sectors are not being prioritized because of their high cost and concerns about industrial competitiveness, and that stronger policy support is needed to bridge the cost gap ^[11]. Nuclear is the notable exception among higher-cost options: DNV expects installed capacity to grow 30% over the next decade and 170% by 2060, despite high costs and supply-chain risks ^[12]. In our view the forecast follows cost first. The technologies gaining ground are the ones already cheap ^[8], with nuclear the one higher-cost technology DNV expects to hold its share.

For a decarbonization plan, we would sort each line item on two axes. The first is whether the buyer's region imports the fuel the project displaces. The second is whether the technology competes on cost without policy support. An importer buying solar, onshore wind or batteries sits where security and cost agree, and that is where we would anchor 2030 demand. An importer with a hydrogen or carbon capture project has the security motive but faces a forecast DNV has cut ^[10], so the case needs named policy support. An exporter's cheap projects still have the cost case, though DNV describes exporters as the slower group ^[4]. An exporter with a costly project has the least support in the report's numbers.

The tradeoff is that a plan weighted this way will under-count upside if governments restore support for hydrogen and carbon capture.