Canada Power Report Q2 2012
A number of factors have prompted us to revise our forecasts for Canada’s power sector. As part of a revision of our historical data series, we have now factored in lower generation, consumption and net installed capacity for 2011. On top of that, a number of macroeconomic and sector-specific dynamics have been priced-in to our outlook. Most notably, according to BMI’s Country Risk team, the Canadian growth outlook will remain relatively positive; yet, a significant deceleration in activity is expected in the first half of 2012 as the global economy cools. As a consequence, while we still expect the power sector will avoid entering negative territory, we see power consumption growing only modestly (0.83%) in 2012. In the short term, we believe that much will depend on the external picture and its influence on Canada’s economy. With power demand highly correlated to economic activity, we thus see risks to both the upside and the downside to our power forecasts for 2012. Tha...