Rapid industrialization leading to increase in the overall energy consumption can have positive impact on the companies involved in producing energy using different resources. The energy consumption market focuses on analyzing the energy requirements of various industries according to the technology such as hydro, wind, solar and others. The use of various appliances in by the energy consumers ultimately leading to higher consumption levels and thus increasing demands has put additional pressure on governments to supply the life line energy to its citizens.
The energy consumption market can be segmented on the basis of technology, end user industry, consumption levels, and geography. The technology based segmentation categorizes the market according to various technologies such as wind solar, hydro, geothermal and nuclear. As it is impossible to determine the consumption levels on the basis of technology so the market is segmented on the basis of installed capacity of each energy technology. The end user industry based classification identifies the various industries such as agriculture, construction, transportation, power and others that are contributing towards the energy consumption. The increased level of energy consumption directly affects the consumers, as ultimately they have to bear the burden of increased electricity prices. Decreasing level of non renewable resources such as coal, crude oil and natural gas creates the supply demand gap that leads to increased price of electricity.
The segmentation on the basis of consumption level classifies the end user into large scale, small scale and medium scale consumers of energy. The large scale consumers include all the heavy industries with higher energy demands to support their production activities. The large scale consumers include the industries such as oil and gas, construction and metallurgy that require a 24 hour supply of energy to support their operations. The medium scale consumers include the small scale industries and residential buildings that require less energy than the large scale industries. The small scale consumers include houses and institutes that require least amount of energy.
The regional segmentation of the energy consumption market can be done by identifying the countries with higher levels of power consumption. The major countries include the United States and Canada in North America; the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Russia, Italy and Germany in Europe; China, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Japan, South Korea, Thailand and Australia in the Asia Pacific; Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela in Latin America. The Rest of The World (RoW) segment includes the Middle Eastern and African countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Egypt and South Africa. The rise in population and the increasing industrialization, especially in the Asia Pacific countries such as India and China has lead to the overall rise in demand of energy.
Increasing population, rapid industrialization and ignorance on the part of energy consumer to take necessary steps in order to save the energy are the basic drivers for the energy consumption market. Decreasing fossil fuel reserves and increasing energy prices are the major restraints to the energy consumption market. Discovery of new unconventional reserves of shale gas, tar sands and shale oil with the capability to quench the need of future energy requirements are the major opportunities to the energy consumption market.
Several stakeholders in this market include various end user industries, residential buildings and institutes.
