Electric Generating Capacity by Country – World Electricity Production Growth driven by Emerging Markets

The world’s total electricity generating capacity is around 4500 GW (2007 figures) which is expected to increase by 1.7% each year to rise to 7000 GW by 2035 according  to EIA.USA is still the world’s largest electricity producing country with more than 20% of the world’s power capacity with around 1 Terawatts of Electricity Capacity.China has been rapidly adding capacity in the last decade and the second biggest electricity producing country with more than 700 GW more than 70% of which is from coal fired power plants.Japan,Russia and India are No.3,4 and 5 on the list with 280 Gw,220 GW and 159GW respectively.Europe is the third largest region in terms of electricity capacity with more than 800 GW.India is rapidly increasing capacity and is projected to be the No.3 in the list by 2020 as it looks to more almost treble its current electricity capacity of around 150 GW (in 2007).

The backlash against coal and nuclear power is expected to throw many of the regions like Europe into shortages.The prices of electricity have been rising rapidly over the last decade and should continue to do so as global warming makes countries put a price on the carbon emissions.Besides increasing fossil fuel prices like coal and oil have alraedy made sharp power price increases inevitable.This is going to benefit the move towards renewable energy particulary solar energy which is seeing sharp decrease in costs.Here is a list of the major countries installed electricity capacity

USA 995 GW
China 716 GW
Japan 279 GW
Russia 221 GW
India 159 GW
Germany 140 GW
Canada 125 GW
Brazil 100 GW
South Korea 79 GW

Summary

The developed world electricity growth is expected to be less than 1% over the next 25 years while China and India grow at more than 3%.China should soon overtake USA as the largest producer of electricity while India should overtake Japan to take over the No.3 position.Note the electricity production is one of the most important benchmarks to measure the economic growth of a country.