This NRG Expert product provides a by-country/fuel overview of global generating capacity, its evolutionand power forecasts to 2035. Global generating capacity rose from approximately 134 GW in 1938, to 213 GWin 1950 after the Second World War, and then to 5,082 GW in 2010. Although the figures were smallcompared with today, the years of WW 2 and the following period, from 1938 to 1950 were a time ofenormous change in the electrical sector in which the seeds of today’s industry were sown.

There washeavy destruction to the industry in Europe and Japan in the first half of the 1940s, while in the USAcapacity grew from 37.6 GW in 1938 to 50.1 GW in 1945. In the years after the war reconstructioncommenced, with global capacity growing to 217 GW by 1950. Global capacity is forecast to reach7,390 GW in 2020.