What this map shows
The Energy Time Machine colours every country by one indicator of its energy system for a single year. Move the slider (or press ▶ Play) and the map steps through time from 1985 to the most recent year with data, so you can watch transitions happen: Denmark and Germany turning teal as wind arrives in the 2000s, solar spreading across Europe, Chile, Australia and Vietnam after 2015, and coal shrinking in the UK from over 60% of generation in 1990 to effectively zero.
Seventeen metrics are available, grouped into clean power (shares of renewables, low-carbon, solar, wind, hydro and nuclear), fossil fuels (coal, gas, oil and total fossil shares), emissions (carbon intensity of electricity) and consumption (electricity and primary energy per person, solar and wind generation per person, and total generation).
How to read it
Colours are grouped into seven classes, shown in the legend at the bottom left. Classes are fixed for each metric and do not rescale from year to year, so a country that darkens over time really has changed, not just moved relative to others. Share metrics are percentages of a country’s total electricity generation (not total energy use, which also includes transport fuels and heating). The exception is “Renewables share of all primary energy”, which covers the whole energy system and is therefore much lower almost everywhere.
Hover over a country (or tap it on a phone) to see its exact value and its rank among all countries with data that year. Click to open the country panel: a history chart compares the country with the world average, and a stacked bar shows its full electricity mix for the selected year. From there you can jump to the full country energy profile.
Things worth trying
- Solar boom: choose Solar share, set 2010 and press play. In 2010 almost every country was below 0.5%; by the mid-2020s much of Europe, Australia, Chile and the Middle East are in double digits.
- The nuclear map barely moves. France stays near 65–75%, while Germany’s share falls to zero in 2023.
- Coal’s retreat is uneven: watch the UK, Spain and Portugal fade while India, Indonesia and Vietnam stay dark.
- Electricity per person reveals the access gap: Iceland and Norway generate over 20,000 kWh per person per year, many Sub-Saharan countries less than 250.
Data and methodology
Values come from the Our World in Data energy dataset, which harmonises Ember’s yearly electricity data, the Energy Institute’s Statistical Review of World Energy and EIA statistics. Generation shares are calculated on total generation (including net-zero contributions such as pumped storage where reported). Carbon intensity is life-cycle based, as published by Ember. Country shapes are Natural Earth boundaries at 1:50 million scale; a handful of overseas territories that are reported separately (for example Réunion or French Guiana) are not drawn as separate shapes. Before 2000 only around 80 countries report detailed generation data, so the early map is sparser.
Want to know what these numbers mean for a household? Estimate the CO₂ of your electricity use, check how much a solar system would produce at your address, or compare countries side by side in Compare and Rankings.