Energy Stats is designed for exploring electricity-grid and energy-transition data by country. The goal of this site is to let you see the energy transition as it is happening in concrete data around the world. The world's energy systems are vast, complex, and slow to change. This is a transition that will be measured in years and decades, rather than days and months. However, through this data you can get a glimpse of the massive scale of the energy transition as it is happening around the world. While this site uses high-quality public datasets, it should not be treated as an authoritative primary reference: Source datasets can be revised by the upstream publishers, methods differ by source, and any summaries here are for exploration rather than formal reporting. See the datasets below for reliable primary references.

Data sources #

This project draws from data provided by multiple organizations. Because methodologies can differ, the site avoids directly combining or comparing metrics from different sources as if they were identical. In every case, we strive to use the most reputable and up-to-date data available. Our main sources are:

• Energy Institute (EI) — Statistical Review of World Energy: Total energy supply and related energy-system totals. See the source dataset and methodology. Note that while the IEA is the key global source for primary energy data, their restrictive licensing prevents us from using it for this site. The Energy Institute is an independent and well regarded alternative source.
• Ember — Monthly Electricity Data: Monthly electricity generation data for 88 countries. See the source dataset and methodology. Note that data series from Ember for each country start at different years, and are updated on different cadences. In most cases, we use rolling 12-month data windows so that the most recent data are included, while avoiding the skewing effect of seasonal fluctuations. Also noteworthy, data from China starts in 2015, and data from India starts in 2019. These countries are large enough that global-level statistics can be skewed when viewed year over year over those time periods.

Primary energy: interpretation caveats #

Primary energy is an internationally recognized metric in energy accounting, but it can be easy to misread. This is especially true when comparing fossil fuels (often counted as thermal inputs) with non-fossil electricity (secondary energy, or an energy carrier). Because most of the energy in fossil fuels is wasted during combustion, the amount of energy required to achieve the same task (moving a vehicle, heating a home, etc.) is much higher for fossil fuels than for non-fossil electricity. This can make low-carbon sources appear smaller in “primary energy” terms than the value they deliver to end users. However, it is still a valuable metric for understanding the shift from combustion to electrification in the global energy system.

For an excellent explanation of direct vs substituted primary energy and how to interpret it, see: Our World in Data — What’s the difference between direct and substituted primary energy?

The specific metric we use on this site is Total Energy Supply. This is the sum of the primary energy available for use in a country: domestic production, plus imports, minus exports and fuel placed in international storage. The Energy Institute uses the Physical Energy Content method to calculate total energy supply.

Electrification #

Electrification is the share of primary energy that is used for electricity generation. There are a variety of ways to measure electrification, and you will see widely different values for the same country from different sources. Our primary sources do not provide a direct measure of electrification, so we have to calculate it from other metrics. We currently use a very simplistic calculation based on data from The Energy Institute's Statistical Review of World Energy:

• All energy associated with solar, wind, hydro and nuclear is considered electrified.
• For fossil fuels, we assume a thermal efficiency of 33% for coal, 45% for gas, and 32% for oil.
• We use a conversion factor of 1 TWh = 3.6 PJ, and divide by the thermal efficiency to translate electricity generation from fossil fuels to primary energy.

Although this corrects for the efficiency of fossil fuels as an electricity source, it does not correct for the fact that electrified end-use devices are far more efficient than fossil fuel-based devices, particularly for heating and transportation. For example, consider only passenger vehicles. Assume a country has 50% of its vehicle fleet electrified (EV), and 50% with internal combustion engines (ICE), with an equivalent mix of vehicle types and sizes. Since an EV has 90% efficiency, and ICE vehicles have about 30% efficiency, in primary energy terms this fleet would have a calculated electrification rate of 25% (every 3 EVs consume the same amount of primary energy as 1 ICE vehicle).

Low-carbon vs renewable energy #

Renewable energy on this site is defined as energy sources that are not depleted when used, or that are replenished by natural processes over human timescales (~100 years). Specifically, this includes energy harnessed from solar, wind, hydro, biofuels, and geothermal sources. This excludes both fossil fuels and nuclear energy.

Low-carbon energy on this site is defined as energy sources that emit minimal carbon dioxide per unit of energy produced. This includes all renewable energy sources, as well as nuclear energy.

Source code and contact information #

The source code for this site is freely available under the MIT license, and contributions are welcome. You are also welcome to open issues in GitHub if you find a bug in either the code or the data.

Highlights of monthly electricity records and other insights are shared occasionally on the site's social media accounts. You are welcome to follow or interact with us on Bluesky, or the site formerly known as Twitter.