World Voltages

Today in the world it is estimated that one in five people (that is a staggering 1.3 billion people) still have no access to electricity and where access is available national power generation companies are struggling to keep up with the ever rising demand of consumers and as a result the reliability and quality of the power being delivered is becoming a growing problem.

Historically the problem has been widely held to be an issue of the less developed countries, but in recent years even in Europe and North America, with a lack of general investment in new generation capacity and the failure to replace decommissioned fossil fuel and nuclear power stations, existing supply networks have been found to be struggling to keep up with the demand of the new power hungry digital age and many consumers are now witnessing a marked general deterioration in the availability and quality of power they receive.

With the International Energy Agency in their 2013 World Energy Outlook projecting that the global demand for electricity will rise by more than two thirds between 2011 and 2035, the anticipated investment needed in generation, transmission and distribution networks to satisfy this perceived increased demand is a huge $17 trillion. Attracting this amount of investment is a monumental undertaking in its own right and requires not only universal government participation, but also the involvement of private sector investors.

While there may be the political will for such large investment, many commentators believe in less developed countries, where the need is greatest, it will be virtually impossible in the time frame to create the right liberal economic business environment to attract the much need private investors.

As a result it can be concluded that for the foreseeable future the problems with the reliability and quality of mains power throughout the world will be a continuing and growing issue, limiting the potential of economic growth – especially in less developed countries.