Less than 15 countries in the world get almost all of their electricity from renewables

Since the Industrial Revolution, the energy mix of most countries across the world has become dominated by fossil fuels. This has major implications for the global climate, as well as for human health. Three-quarters of global greenhouse gas emissions result from the burning of fossil fuels for energy. Fossil fuels are responsible for large amounts of local air pollution – a health problem that leads to at least 5 million premature deaths each year.

To reduce CO2 emissions and local air pollution, the world needs to rapidly shift towards low-carbon sources of energy – nuclear and renewable technologies.

Renewable energy will play a key role in decarbonizing our energy systems in the coming decades. But how rapidly is our production of renewable energy changing? What technologies look most promising in transforming our energy mix?

14 countries have consistently generated over 95% renewable electricity, according to Ember’s Yearly electricity data. In eight of these countries, electricity has been almost entirely renewable-based for over 20 years.

Renewable sources include hydropower, solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, tidal, and wave power. In all these countries, the largest source of electricity was hydropower.

Sub-Saharan countries, however, use significantly less electricity in their energy mix compared to countries in Europe or North America.