Wind and solar are on the rise worldwide — here are the 10 countries that rely on the clean-energy sources most for their electricity.
All of these countries used wind and solar to produce at least one-third of their electricity in 2024, according to a new report from the Energy Institute. For leading countries such as Denmark, Djibouti, and Lithuania, that figure was in the range of two-thirds or more.
Those numbers are much higher than the global average: Overall last year, wind and solar accounted for 15% of global power generation, up from 13% in 2023.
To be clear, China is still by far the largest producer of solar and wind energy in the world in terms of volume. The country generated 1,836 terawatt-hours of wind and solar last year. All of Europe, for comparison, generated 990 TWh over the same period. But despite that huge amount of renewable energy generation, China received a much lower share of its power from solar and wind in 2024 than the 10 countries on this list — just about 18%.
The list is mostly populated by smaller countries, but it does include some large economies like Germany and Spain. In Germany, wind and solar accounted for a combined 43% of power. In Spain, 42%. (Spain recently suffered a countrywide blackout for which its high share of renewables was blamed. The true culprit, according to a government report released last week, was poor grid planning.)
Read the underlying report. The numbers are all there.
Netherlands is not the leader in wind energy construction and technology:
Vestas, a Danish company, is widely recognized as the world leader in wind construction and technology. They are the largest wind turbine manufacturer globally, with a substantial installed base across numerous countries. Vestas is also a key player in offshore wind technology and construction. Other significant players include GE Vernova, Siemens Gamesa, and Goldwind, with China holding a leading position in overall wind energy capacity.
For some of the countries on that chart, the proportion of fossil fuels can be high. Just because a country has a large amount of wind or solar capacity, doesn’t mean its electricity is low carbon. One way to compare electricity systems is to look at the carbon intensity, in grams of CO2 per kilowatt-hour of generation.
Looking at the countries on the chart in the OP article, below are the latest carbon intensities. Most of these numbers are from 2024, with the exception of Djibouti (2023) and Mauritania (2022).
Carbon Intensity, Grams of CO2 per kwh
Denmark: 143 g/kwh
Djibouti: 450
Lithuania: 139
Netherlands: 253
Portugal: 112
Germany: 344
Spain: 146
Ireland: 280
Greece: 320
Mauritania: 482
Two countries not on the above list, but have exceptionally low carbon intensities, are France at 44 grams/kwh, and Sweden at 36 grams. As a comparison, the 2024 intensity for the USA is 384 grams/kwh. China , which is mentioned in the OP article, is at 560 grams/kwh. China burns a huge amount of coal.
It can also be mentioned that Portugal and Lithuania in the list both import a significant amount of their electricity from outside. Portugal imported over 20% of its electricity in 2024, while Lithuania imported over 40%. That imported power is probably higher in carbon intensity, since wind and solar have such poor capacity factors, and are not dispatchable.
The USA and Germany are fairly close in their electricity CO2 intensities. France and Sweden, both with significant amounts of nuclear power, are much lower. Wind and solar are too intermittent to be able to provide that kind of consistent, low carbon electricity.
Renewables are more than wind and solar. Renewables also include hydro, geothermal, biomass, and ocean energy. Wind and solar can be supported by energy storage from pumped hydro, batteries and other energy storage. These can be combined to provide 90 to 100 percent consistent, low carbon electricity. With other alternative energy storage developments the number will be 100 percent in the next 10 years IMO.
Where is that done? Show me one modern, industrial country that produces 90% of its electricity from wind and/or solar power, plus batteries or some other type of storage? Show me just one moderately sized, industrial city, that gets 90% of its electricity from wind and/or solar plus storage? I’m not interested in some tiny island somewhere with no industry. It needs to be a modern, first-world type country (or even a large city), with significant industry.
Norway gets almost all of its power from hydro. But hydro is dispatchable. Hydro can be ramped up and down, as conditions change. Wind and solar cannot be used to control grid frequency in that way.
I find your post to be dishonest for the following reasons:
You purposely took only part of my response to make my post seem silly. You also need to understand that I was referring to what is technically possible when using all renewable energy sources are used for power generation in the future. I did not claim that big industrial nations are doing it now.
Wrong - total energy is not used in power generation discussions.
Power generation is the process of converting other forms of energy into electrical energy. This is typically done at power plants, which utilize various energy sources like fossil fuels, nuclear reactions, or renewable resources (solar, wind, hydro) to produce electricity.
