India vs G21: Comparing GDP, Electricity Consumption and Electricity Intensity
Energy Intensity is the measure of Energy Efficiency in a country. It measures the energy supplied to the economy per unit value of economic output[1]. The unit of measurement is megajoules per unit of GDP. In this article here, we compare the electricity intensity between India and the G21. The unit of measurement is kWh of electricity consumed to produce $1 (gross domestic product). Energy intensity would mean all other sources of energy, such as oil for transportation, other fuels for industrial processes and residential purposes.
We map the trend of GDP (in 2015 dollars), electricity consumption/demanded (in TWh) and the electricity intensity (kWh per $ of GDP in 2015 dollars) for India and G21 nations and regions from 2011 to 2022.
In fig. 1 below we compare the Electricity Consumed in India and G21.
We notice that India consumed about 1039 TWh in 2011 that increased to about 1850 TWh in 2022. That is prodigious growth in electricity demand, until we notice that China increased it electricity consumption from 4,700 TWh to over 8,800 TWh in 2022. By contracts we notice that USA and some other countries from EU have modest growth or reductions in electricity consumption. Countries such as Germany, France, Italy and the UK have reduced their electricity demand. This could be for various reasons, which we are not exploring in this article now.
In fig. 2 below we compare the GDP growth between India and G21 regions in 2011 and 2022.
We find from fig 2, that India’s GDP grew from $ 1616 billion to over $ 2900 billion between 2011 and 2022. China too had almost doubled its economy from $8200 billion to over $ 16300 billion, growing by over 2 times. By contrast USA grew by 25% in that decade. The rankings have remained more or less consistent with some countries like India, Indonesia and Turkey doing better than their preceding rank-holders during the decade.
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From fig. 3 we notice that EU countries not originally part of the G20 have a very poor electricity intensity – consuming about 4.72 kWh to produce $1 of GDP. All other countries consume less 1 kWh to produce $1 of output. There is a modest improvement in the electricity intensity of almost all countries.
India has made a modest improvement in its electricity intensity going from 0.54 kWh/$ in 2011 to 0.53 kWh/$ in 2022. As per our commitment we are to achieve 33% reduction in emission intensity from our 2005 levels, by 2030. With the pace shown here, albeit for only Electricity Intensity, it does not look encouraging that India may achieve her objectives.
To be fair, no one in the above segment has achieved any meaningful improvement in their intensities. This does not seem fast enough to achieve the the Global Target of reducing temperature under 1.5 deg C target we set ourselves at the Glasgow CoP.
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