Strong growth in global power demand in 2024, fuelled by the expansion of electrification, is ushering in the new Age of Electricity. All the additional demand in our 2025‑2027 forecast is set to be covered by low emissions technologies. Electricity consumption rose by an estimated 4.3% y-o-y in 2024, up from 2.5% in 2023, with growth expected to continue at a robust 3.9% in our outlook period. In 2024, most of the growth in global electricity demand occurred in emerging economies, with the People’s Republic of China (hereafter, “China”) accounting for 54% of the total. Out to 2027, developing economies will remain the engines of growth, accounting for around 85% of additional global electricity demand, with China providing more than half of the gains.

Since 2020, China’s power demand has been growing faster than its economy, boosted by an array of factors, including rapid growth in electricity-intensive manufacturing of clean energy technologies, rising ownership of air conditioners, increasing penetration of electric vehicles and expanding data centres and the 5G sectors. 

China’s gross electricity demand approached the 10 000 TWh mark at the end of 2024. More than one-third of global electricity consumption has taken place in China since 2023. Even though Chinese economic growth shows signs of slowing down, electricity demand in recent years has remained robust. Electricity consumption increased by about 7% y-o-y in both 2023 and 2024, despite slower economic growth of around 5%. Similarly, over the next three years (2025-2027), while projected GDP growth is forecast at around 4% on average according to the IMF, we expect electricity demand to increase by a more robust 6%. This means that China will be adding three times the annual electricity demand of Canada in the next three years. Our analysis shows that the rapid electrification across all sectors has had a major transformative impact of increasing electricity demand beyond economic growth. The share of electricity in total final consumption in China is estimated at 28% in 2024, up from 27% in 2023. 

In China, industry consumes approximately 60% of all electricity, much higher than in any other country in the world (32% on average in the OECD). Over the three-year period from 2022 to 2024, 48% of the increase in Chinese electricity demand came from the industry sector. 

Alongside the traditional energy-intensive sectors, the rapidly expanding electricity-intensive manufacturing of solar modules, batteries, electric vehicles and associated materials played a significant role. The manufacturing of these new energy products as they are referred to in China, are estimated to have consumed more than 300 TWh of electricity in 2024 – roughly as much electricity as Italy uses in a year. The increase in consumption of these sectors has been remarkable in recent years, which rose by about 230 TWh over 2022-2024. During this period, new energy products made up nearly 35% of the increase in industrial electricity demand and 16% of the growth in total electricity use across China. Including the numerous electricity-intensive upstream processes associated with these products that take place in China, such as the refining and processing of the related materials, can further boost these numbers.

Industrial electricity demand has been growing faster in recent years than industrial value added, indicating that the Chinese industry is becoming more electricity-intensive. This is particularly the case in light industries, such as textile, food and tobacco, and mechanical and electrical products.

Apart from the growth in electricity-intensive manufacturing of new energy products, one other trend of industrial electrification is the replacement of fossil fuel-based heating for certain processes with electric heating in some industries such as chemicals and refineries. At the same time, industrial heat pumps are also increasingly being installed, after China announced plans to increase the number of heat pumps in light industries.

In sectors outside of industry,  important catalysts of higher electricity consumption include the growing stock of air conditioners, expansion of data centres and 5G, and stronger EV charging demand.

Following a strong 8.3% increase in 2023, electricity demand in India grew 5.8% y-o-y in 2024 amid strong economic growth. While electricity consumption rose by a robust 8.5% during the first half of the year due to intense and long heatwaves, the second half saw a more subdued growth in demand amid milder weather. Supported by rapid economic expansion and increasing electrification, India’s electricity demand is forecast to grow at a high rate of 6.3% annually from 2025 to 2027 on average. Rising air conditioner ownership will continue to bolster electricity demand growth.

Peak electricity load in India has shown strong growth in recent years, rising from 148 GW in 2014 to 250 GW (+68%) in 2024, led higher by the rapid expansion of its industry, development of agriculture, enhanced electricity access and increased use of air conditioning and appliances in the residential and commercial sectors. As a result, electricity demand in these sectors rose by around 60-65% between 2014 and 2024. While good interconnections among states and the operation of thermal power plants allow Indian utilities to cover demand in energy terms throughout the year, the rapid increase in yearly peak load poses a major challenge for the electricity grid and national authorities.

Even though less than 20% of households in India are equipped with an air conditioner, the contribution of cooling to total peak load is estimated at 60 GW in 2024, as sales reached a new record of 14 million AC units sold in 2024. This is 27% more than in 2023, when 11 million units were sold. By 2030, cooling equipment is expected to contribute one-third to the peak electricity load in India, potentially reaching 140 GW. This would be more in line with trends in advanced economies such as the United States, where cooling demand currently takes 50% of total peak load on the warmest days in Texas. Data shows that for each incremental degree in daily average temperature, daily peak demand in India increased by more than 7 GW in 2024, twice the increase observed in 2019. By 2027, this value could surpass 11 GW per degree. 

In the United States, the world’s second-largest electricity consumer after China, demand growth rebounded to 2% in 2024, following a 1.8% decline in 2023 amid mild weather. While demand from the buildings sector saw strong growth, industrial sector also had significantly higher electricity consumption. Hot summer temperatures in 2024 provided an additional boost to demand growth due to higher cooling needs. In 2024, electricity demand surpassed its previous high in 2022.

We expect US electricity demand to grow at an average annual rate of about 2% over the period 2025-2027.1 This is an upwards revision from our forecast in January 2024, which had projected 1% growth for the 2025-2026 period. With this revision, forecast US electricity demand in 2026 is now around 100 TWh higher than in our previous forecast a year ago.

One major reason for the upward revision is the expectation of strong demand growth from the data centre sector. The other factor is the robust economic outlook, with the IMF having revised the 2025 GDP growth rate in their latest October 2024 outlook significantly higher from 1.8% to 2.2%.2 Overall, the latest IMF outlook projects robust economic growth for the United States over the 2025-2027 period, with annual GDP averaging 2.1%. We expect the manufacturing sector in general, especially new large industrial loads such as semiconductor production facilities, to contribute to the demand growth through 2027. This will be accompanied by continued electrification of the heating and transportation sectors.

The European Union’s electricity consumption fell 2.8% in 2022 y-o-y, which was followed by a 3.3% drop in 2023 – with both declines mainly driven by reduced electricity consumption in the industrial sector as it struggled with economic slowdown and elevated energy prices. As a result of these two consecutive annual declines, EU electricity consumption fell to levels last seen two decades ago. EU electricity demand posted a 1.4% y-o-y increase in 2024. EU industrial electricity demand remained roughly flat in 2024 compared to 2023, following consecutive declines of about 6% over the previous two years, in 2022 and 2023. The growth in electricity demand is estimated to have come from the commercial sector boosted by data centres, and residential and transport sectors amid an increasing number of heat pump and EV stocks, respectively.

While the previous decline trend in EU industrial electricity demand seems to have stabilised, there is still significant uncertainty surrounding the electricity demand recovery in European industries. Electricity prices remain above pre-crisis levels for energy-intensive industries, which are also higher than in most competing regions. At the same time, domestic demand for many industrial products remains weak. Nevertheless, slight increases in primary metal and chemical production were observed in 2024. The extent of the recovery in these sectors is uncertain, however, as negative business sentiment is prevalent across multiple countries, with many companies experiencing difficulties. In addition to energy-intensive industries, among leading manufacturing sectors, the automotive industry is increasingly coming under pressure from weakening domestic demand and growing competition in export markets. 

After easing in 2023, preliminary data for 2024 shows that average electricity prices for energy-intensive industries in the EU decreased only by 5% compared to the previous year and are still 65% higher than in 2019. Despite declining from the record highs in 2022 and slightly lower compared to 2023, electricity prices for energy-intensive industries in the European Union in 2024 were, on average, still double those in the United States and 50% higher than in China.