Forecast of the Global Electricity Market

Abstract

Long-term experience indicates that the demand for electricity has been and still is closely coupled to economic growth. As we seek to forecast future electricity demand, we need to analyze the long-term growth in the worldwide economic activity. It is well known that the driving factors for economic growth are the increasing global population and the need to provide for and improve the standard of living of the several billion persons inhabiting our planet over the next decades. More than three-fourths of the world population lives in countries where both the per capita gross national product and electricity consumption are quite low compared to the levels currently achieved in western industrial nations. As the developing countries endeavor to expand their economies and allow increased personal consumption, their demands for electricity services will increase.