Relationship between electricity and economic growth for long-term periods: New possibilities for energy prediction

Abstract

The main scope of this research was to develop and apply new methodology for energy prediction during a long-term period, based on the logarithmic relationship between electricity per capita and GDP per capita. This relationship was proven to be valid until 1989. It contains changeable energy and financial indicators and a dynamic rate of growth K, in the form of hyperbolic curves. With a range of slopes from 0.1 to 6, it enables a new economic classification of countries. Further research of this method, called IKoMet, has made the application of this relationship for future periods possible through the deduction of new energy and financial indicators. It was first applied to Italy, by the determination of indicators for a prediction after 1990. The results show that energy growth in the first period was more than ten times faster in comparison to the following period, while financial growth was almost twice as large in the first period. This procedure was also successfully applied for Switzerland, thus it can be concluded that IKoMet could generally be used for long-term energy prediction.