Region needs $674b for power utilities: UN expert
Region needs $674b for power utilities: UN expert
SINGAPORE (AFP): Asia-Pacific developing economies require
massive investments of up to US$674 billion in power utilities to
meet soaring demand for electricity, a UN energy expert said here
yesterday.
China, India and South Korea account for nearly 50 percent of
the total investment required, said Pranesh Chandra Saha of the
UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific
(ESCAP), based in Thailand.
He quoted an ESCAP estimate which put China's additional power
requirement during the decade to 2000 at up to 129,000 megawatts,
India's at 61,000 megawatts and Korea's at 24,000 megawatts.
Electricity demand in all developing countries of the region
is projected to grow to 779,000 megawatts by 2000, up from
474,000 megawatts in 1990.
Saha told a conference on the power sector that 40-45 percent
of the total investment would go to finance electricity
transmission and distribution systems, which could end up costing
up to US$303 billion.
"To meet sustained high economic growth, the demand for
electricity in developing economies of the ESCAP region has been
growing at a remarkably high rate and this growth is expected to
continue in the future," Saha said.
Electricity demand in the region has been growing at about
nine percent per annum on the back of rapid economic and
population growth, he said.
Much demand is unmet, and per capita consumption in many
developing countries of the region is still very low compared to
that of industrialized nations.
China's per capita consumption of electricity, for example, is
less than 10 percent of Australia's. India's is five percent of
Australian consumption. Only 12 percent of Bangladesh's
population has access to electricity.
"There is a suppressed demand. If you bring electricity to the
people, they'll consume it," said Saha, who works with ESCAP's
energy resources section.
"Electricity, as a high-grade and clean form of energy, has
many advantages in comparison with other forms of energy.
Therefore, electricity production and consumption will continue
to increase at a faster rate than overall energy demand," the
expert said.
Just a fraction of the enormous funding required in the highly
capital-intensive sector is being met through official channels
such as loans from the World Bank.
Strapped for funds and faced with huge unmet demand, many
governments in the region have deregulated their power sector to
allow domestic and foreign private sector participation.