Comparison of past projections of global and regional primary and final energy consumption with historical data

Abstract

Energy planning is fundamental for energy planners to accurately plan for the future and to utilize the sustainable and renewable energy resources to a larger extent. But how well are we able to project the future? In this paper, past projections of global and regional energy consumption are compared to real data. The conclusions found that when comparing energy consumption projections with real registered data projections in 1977 substantially overestimated energy demand in the future, while later projections in the 80 s and 90 s were closer to reality, slightly underestimating real growth in demand. Although projections made in these two decades for total demand were typically slightly underestimated, per capita projections were still overestimating real trends. Considering the building sector, residential and commercial, energy consumption was underestimated in WEO 1982 and WEO 1994; and again, when per capita values are considered, higher values than reality were projected. © 2017 Elsevier Ltd