The International Energy Agency projects that global electricity demand is experiencing a rapid surge.
One of the presenters at this week’s T&T Energy Conference, Kevin Beepat, a member of the Board of Directors at the Trinidad and Tobago Electricity Commission (T&TEC), made a case for the future demand for power.
He said the world is not just trying to produce cleaner energy: it’s trying to produce more energy and do it reliably.
“Electricity is becoming the backbone of the future economy, and if that is true, energy policy is not just about power plants and generation. It’s about ensuring the viability, competitiveness, and security of the nations.”
Mr. Beepat outlined the key forces shaping global energy consumption in the coming years: “Why do we think the future energy demand will increase? I like to think of it with four main drivers, the first is electrification. The foremost example of this is we’re all familiar is in transportation where we have vehicles now moving away from fuels like petrol and diesel toward electric vehicles where the energy demand now is put onto the grid.”
He said the inclination is for the world’s population to use even more and more electrical products.
“And this is just a trend, but we’re all familiar with electrified power tools, electrified machinery and much more electrified processes. The second driver is air conditioning and cooling. I know we’re all familiar with a warm Caribbean climate, but if we pay attention to the energy usage, we will see that most of that goes into cooling.”
Mr. Beepat pointed to two of the major areas that are ushering in the age of electricity.
“The third driver is industry and industrial capacity. You see, any country, as it grows, so too does its industrial capacity and the success of that industrial capacity is largely backed by the strength and robustness of the electricity system. And the fourth and perhaps biggest driver is digital: data centres, cloud computing, AI systems. They all use vast amounts of power, and this is set to increase.”
Mr. Beepat recommends that part of the solution to meeting this greater demand for electricity is renewable energy sources.