05-04-04

During the first years of the 21st century, power companies and their suppliers have undertaken an unprecedented expansion of electric generating capacity according to the most recent release of the Platts UDI World Electric Power Plants Database.

Worldwide capacity additions completed or scheduled from 2000 to 2006 now are estimated to be 906 GW, and the 2003 value of just less than 140 GW is an all-time record.

Plant completion during the current building cycle has more than matched the worldwide peaks attained in 1973 and 1974 (106 GW and 107 GW added, respectively) and again in 1984 and 1985 (116 GW and 111 GW added, respectively). Global installed capacity at the end of 2003 currently is estimated to be 3,923 GW.

“During the last four years, the global power sector has witnessed a truly historic mobilization of construction and managerial resources to bring about this tremendous physical plant expansion,” said Christopher Bergesen, editorial director of Platts UDI products.

“The United States was a major contributor to the building boom, with 264 GW online or scheduled from 2000-2006, but China is building fast at 165 GW. Eight other countries installed or are scheduled to complete more than 18 GW each over the period,” he added.
The new plant data are extracted from the Platts UDI World Electric Power Plants Database. This file has 114,000 records and is maintained on a company-by-company, unit-by-unit basis using direct surveys and a wide variety of other sources. The database and its predecessor files have been in continuous publication since the late 1970s.

Platts, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies.

Source: PRNewswire