ABS Power Predictor Report and Interactive Database Ed 6 2007

Abstract

Introduction

• Power Predictor is an ABS product that is made up of a report and an Excel database
• The new PP6 report contains a wealth of new analysis
• The database has been significantly expanded
• Power Predictor is an up-date which shows quite a few changes in future projected generating capacity
• The industry is changing rapidly
• Technology is moving very fast in response to concerns about security of fuel supply, environmental issues and fuel prices
• The team has researched national plans further and evaluated them
• We conclude that some will be achieved and some not

Report Scope

• Installed generating capacity is now recorded for almost every one of the 187 countries annually from 1950 to the present and projected forward annually to 2020, an expansion on previous editions that were limited to 1991 to 2010 for annual data
• Project database of 2,456 new generation projects in the pipeline
• Annual capacity by fuel (where applicable - coal, oil, gas, hydro, nuclear, wind, solar PV, solar thermal, geothermal, biomass, ocean) is recorded from 1990/91/92 to 2011
• New additions and capacity reaching the age of 40 years is provided for every country
• The report contains over 370 charts with new analysis showing some fascinating new conclusions
• In addition to 2 previous charts which have been up-dated (generating capacity in 5 year segments and annual capacity) the report now contains 3 new sets of analysis for each country
• Capacity is charted against generation historically to show periods and trends of high and low utilisation
• Capacity by fuel charts have been introduced from the ABS Fuel Forecasts series
• The report now contains historical charts of utility production compared with autoproduction (captive production) from 1950 for most countries

Some Research Findings

• The disparities in expected growth remain between different regions of the world
• In the early days when electrical capacity was very low, the private industrial producers had a far high share of the national total than the public utilities, in some countries as high as 50-60%
• In the big industrial countries the growth of utility capacity far outstripped private industry and sometimes the share has fallen from 50% to 5% over 50 years
• In other countries, where grid coverage is poor and supply unreliable, the private share has retained a high share
• Capacity utilisation can be related to many variables; water shortages in countries heavily dependent on hydro capacity, demand increasing faster than new build (occurring in many countries at different periods for various reasons), industrial decline (very apparent in the FSU and CEE countries after the dissolution of the Soviet Union), at other times generation fell while capacity increased
• Some countries have demonstrated a perfect match of capacity against generation and there are some surprises here
• Chile and Columbia in South America have shown an almost perfect match for 50 years, whereas Paraguay with its mighty dams generated far below capacity for many years