Assessing the accuracy of electricity production forecasts in developing countries

This study assesses the accuracy of time series econometric methods for forecasting electricity production in developing countries. An analysis of the historical time series for 106 developing countries over the period 1960–2012 demonstrates that econometric forecasts are highly accurate for the majority of these countries. These forecasts have much smaller errors than the predictions of simple heuristic models, which assume that electricity production grows at an exogenous rate or is proportional to the real GDP growth. However, the quality of the forecasts diminishes for the countries and regions, where rapid economic and structural transformation makes it difficult to establish stable historical production trends.