The world's largest energy consumer is

The world's largest energy consumer is China.

The 2022 edition of the BP Statistical Yearbook of World Energy is released. The Yearbook summarizes global energy data for 2021. Global energy consumption grows by 5.8% in 2021, up 1.3% from 2019 and above pre-epidemic levels, due to accelerating economic activity. Of this, fossil fuels account for 82 percent of energy consumption, compared with 83 percent in 2019 and 85 percent five years earlier.

Looking at countries, the vast majority of the world's energy consumption is on the rise. China's energy consumption was 157.65 AJ, a year-on-year increase of 7.1 percent, accounting for 26.5 percent of the total global energy consumption, ranking first in energy consumption. The United States, India, Russia, Japan, Canada, Germany, South Korea, Brazil and Iran have entered the top ten in energy consumption.

Elasticity coefficient

The ratio of the growth rate of primary energy consumption to the economic growth rate of a country or region in a given year. The economic growth rate is usually the growth rate of gross national product or gross domestic product, national income.

It reflects the correlation between energy and economic growth. Because the output value and energy consumption are comprehensive indicators, involving the economic structure, management system, resource status, technology level, population size, climatic conditions and international relations and many other factors. Therefore, they vary greatly from year to year within a country and from country to country.

Since the first oil crisis, energy sources and varieties tend to diversify, energy conservation has made great progress, the complexity of the substitution of various energy sources, the energy market is more flexible, internationalization is more prominent, and the electrification process has accelerated.

These factors make the interrelationship between energy and the economy have been distorted, and the general tendency is to become irregular or even disconnected from each other. Therefore, the elasticity coefficient of energy consumption should not be used as a basis for predicting energy demand.

The elasticity coefficient of energy consumption is an indicator that reflects the proportional relationship between the growth rate of energy consumption and the growth rate of the national economy. The formula is: energy consumption elasticity coefficient = average annual growth rate of energy consumption / average annual growth rate of the national economy.

Reference: Baidu Encyclopedia-BP Statistical Yearbook of World Energy