Interactions among economic activity, energy use, and electricity use

Detailed studies have brought out the close correlation between consumption of energy and gross domestic product. While coal, petroleum, and natural gas have been directly used by industry, electricity has also been developed because it is needed to operate machines, equipment, and appliances. Electric power is essential to the nation's continued economic development. It has been common experience in all countries of the Asia-Pacific region, regardless of level of development, that the rate of growth of electricity consumption exceeds substantially the rate of growth of total energy consumption. Moreover, past energy transitions away from oil in these countries have been achieved mainly through restructuring fuel patterns for power generation. Thus the power sector provides a major vehicle for introducing new energy technologies into practice, manipulating a nation's overall energy strategy, and restructuring its energy supply and import patterns. In the future, the nations of Northeast Asia and the United States shall move from a predominantly oil-based power sector to a predominantly electricity-based economy, and the electric power sector will continue to be an engine of energy transition in the postpetroleum era.