Nowadays, the ballistic mortar is the preferred test for the explosive power measurements but there is no reliable method for its prediction. For an energetic compound, the formation of low molecular mass gaseous products and a high positive heat of formation per unit weight of the energetic compound are important parameters to have a high value of power. A novel method was developed to predict the power by the ballistic mortar test for pure and mixture of energetic materials. It can be used for some important classes of energetic compounds including nitroaromatics, acyclic and cyclic nitramines, nitrate esters, and nitroaliphatics. The presented method is based on the molecular structure of the desired compound and there is no need to use experimental data such as the condensed phase heat of formation. For 84 pure and 24mixtures of energetic compounds, the calculated power relative to 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (=100) show good agreement with respect to the measured values.