Ireland
6.969 TWh 2024
~22% of national metered electricity
Measured
01 · The year in electricity
World electricity doubled in a quarter century — and coal still leads.
Seven fuels, 2000–2025, compiled from national statistics. Scrub the timeline or switch the scale — the shape of the transition changes with how you look at it.
- World generation, 2025
- 31,734 TWh
- Clean share, 2025
- 42.6%up from 35% in 2000
- Coal, 2025
- 10,490 TWhjust below its 2024 record of 10,540 TWh
Electricity is not all energy — it is less than one-fifth of the energy humanity uses.
Log scale compresses growth slopes — coal's absolute dominance is understated in this view.
Ember's figures compile national statistics and fill gaps with its own estimates, including distributed solar and off-grid generation missing from official data.
Labeled "compiled": national statistics as compiled by Ember — not meter-by-meter measurements.
Oil is grouped into "Other Fossil" — it has no standalone band in this chart.
Source: Ember Electricity Data Explorer (2026-09-21 vintage), compiled. Method
02 · Trends
Coal still generates more than wind and solar combined — 10,490 TWh against 5,491 TWh.
Seven fuels, seven panels, one shared vertical scale (0–11,000 TWh): a panel that looks flat is genuinely small next to coal, not rescaled. Solar’s curve is the only one bending sharply upward.
Coal · 10,490 TWh in 2025 — still the largest single source
Gas · 6,896 TWh in 2025 — the steady climber
Nuclear · 2,812 TWh in 2025 — roughly flat for a decade
Hydro · 4,432 TWh in 2025 — wind+solar passed it in 2024
Wind · 2,712 TWh in 2025 — from 31 TWh in 2000
Solar · 2,779 TWh in 2025 — passed wind for the first time
Other · 1,613 TWh in 2025 — bioenergy, other renewables, other fossil
Source: Ember Electricity Data Explorer (2026-09-21 vintage), compiled.Method
03 · Sources of generation
In 2025, coal generated more electricity than wind and solar combined — 10,490 TWh against 5,491 TWh.
Each band is a fuel’s compiled flow into total world generation — 31,734 TWh in 2025. Wind and solar have grown 171-fold since 2000, and solar edged past wind for the first time; drag the slider back to see how thin those threads began.
Drag to re-derive the flows for any year, 2000–2025, from the same compiled dataset.
Demand is not shown: at world level it equals generation by construction.
Source: Ember Electricity Data Explorer (2026-09-21 vintage) · compiled.Method
04 · Country comparison
China generated 10,578 TWh of electricity in 2025 — more than twice the United States’ 4,520 TWh.
The same twenty grids, ranked three ways: sheer scale, per-capita generation, or how much already runs clean. Switch the measure — the pecking order flips.
Source: Ember Electricity Data Explorer (2026-09-21 vintage); population Our World in Data — Energy Data (population from UN World Population Prospects).Method
05 · Data centers — estimated
No one has ever measured global data-center electricity — every figure here is an estimate.
Three modeling teams estimate data-center electricity on three different scopes: the IEA models the whole world, LBNL and EPRI model only the United States. The chart keeps them in separate groups — and EPRI's range includes crypto mining, which the IEA excludes.
†Second-hand figure quoted from the cited report — seeMethod.
National snapshots — measured and estimated
Germany
17 TWh†~2022
≈3% of national electricity
Estimated
Singapore
3.71 TWh 2020
≈7% of national electricity
Estimated
Vendor context — not demand:Equinix 8.87 TWh · Digital Realty 11.65 TWh (2024) — TOTAL company energy, not data-center-only; not demand anchors.
Source: Based on IEA data (Key Questions on Energy and AI, Apr 2026 update) · LBNL · EPRI · CSO Ireland · Bitkom via Clean Energy Wire · MTI Singapore. Method
Method notes — plain words
- IEA (global). Modeled from device shipments and market data — no measured global total exists. Excludes crypto mining. 415 TWh†in 2024 (≈1.5% of world electricity) → 485 TWh†in 2025 → 950 TWh†in the 2030 base case (≈3%).
- LBNL (United States). Chip and IT-equipment shipment model. 2024: 192 TWh. 2030 reference scenario 649 TWh with a 521–843 TWh uncertainty band (11.8% of US electricity).
- EPRI (United States). 2026 Powering Intelligence outlook. 2030 range 380–790 TWh (9–17% of US electricity) — its scope includes small data centers and crypto mining, so it cannot be compared with the IEA series.
- Ireland (measured). CSO official metered-electricity statistics: 6,969 GWh in 2024 (~22% of national metered electricity), data centers identified post-hoc from metered demand.
- Germany (~2022, estimated). Industry estimate via Bitkom: 17 TWh†, ≈3% of national electricity.
- Singapore (2020, estimated). MTI's official 7% share; the TWh figure is derived by applying that share to Ember's Singapore 2020 total (53.07 TWh) → 3.71 TWh. Not an official TWh figure.
- Vendor totals. Equinix 8.87 TWh and Digital Realty 11.65 TWh are total company energy (all fuels), calendar 2024 — not data-center-only. Never demand anchors, never ranked.
- What we cut. The UK anchor (source URL unverifiable), S&P/451 figures (source broken), and Big Tech company totals (boundaries not comparable) were removed rather than decorated with badges.
06 · Methodology
Every number on this page can be traced to its source.
Six datasets, two build scripts, one rulebook. Here is what each figure is made of, how sure we are of it — and what we refused to publish.
Data vintage: Ember Yearly Electricity Data (accessed 2026-09-21) · Population: OWID / UN-WPP (2026-09-21) · Page build: Phase 2 V3 · Built 2026-09-21. This text matches the build.
How confidence is marked
| Tag | What it means | On charts |
|---|---|---|
| measured | Directly reported by a metering authority or an audited disclosure — for example Ireland's metered data-center consumption (CSO), or a company's reported energy total. Never inferred, never gap-filled. | Solid rendering. Never badged. |
| compiled | National statistics as compiled by Ember — not meter-by-meter measurements. Ember aggregates official sources and fills gaps (distributed solar, off-grid generation) with its own estimates. | Solid rendering. Never badged. Always labeled "compiled" — never "measured". |
| estimated | Derived from partial data by a stated method — for example Germany ~2022 (Bitkom) or Singapore 2020 (7% share × Ember total). | Dashed + translucent + ESTIMATED badge. |
| modeled | Built from a model where no measured figure exists — IEA, LBNL and EPRI data-center demand. Anchors from different models carry incompatible scopes and are never compared side by side without their scope notes. | Dashed + translucent; the tooltip carries the tag. |
Badge rule: in-chart badges are placed only on estimated and modeled series. Measured and compiled series never carry a badge. Tags are assigned at module or series level — never per data cell.
Data sources
| Dataset | Source | License | Tag |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hero figures | Ember — Yearly Electricity Data | CC BY 4.0 | compiled |
| Global fuel mix · 2000–2025 | Ember — Yearly Electricity Data | CC BY 4.0 | compiled |
| Country mix · top 20 · 2015–2025 | Ember — Yearly Electricity Data | CC BY 4.0 | compiled |
| Flow sankey · 2025 | Ember — Yearly Electricity Data | CC BY 4.0 | compiled |
| Population (per-capita denominator) | Our World in Data / UN-WPP | CC BY 4.0 | compiled |
| Data-center demand | IEA ·LBNL ·EPRI ·CSO (Ireland) ·Bitkom ·MTI (Singapore) ·Equinix ·Digital Realty | Mixed — IEA data is Non-CC (see note) | modeled (per-anchor tags vary) |
Ember data built by scripts/fetch-ember.mjs from the long-format CSV release; population patched byscripts/fetch-population.mjs. Data pulled 2026-09-21.
How each module was built
- Hero
- Ember's World Total Generation row, 2025; YoY from Ember's own YoY column, cross-checked against (latest − prev)/prev.
- Trends
- Annual global generation by fuel, 2000–2025. "Clean" = Ember's aggregate (renewables + nuclear); there is no separate Oil category — oil sits inside "Other Fossil".
- Sankey
- 2025 fuels → total generation. The chart draws no demand side: at world level, demand equals generation by construction (demand = generation + net imports; world net imports = 0). Ember "demand" is supply-side accounting, not end-use consumption. No sector split — no honest open source exists for it.
- Country
- Top 20 countries by 2025 generation (ranking pinned at build time); fuel mix 2015–2025; per-capita = generation ÷ OWID/UN-WPP mid-year population.
- Data centers
- No measured global total exists — global anchors are modeled, never "measured". IEA excludes crypto mining; EPRIincludes mining and small data centers — never compared side by side without the scope notes. Vendor figures (Equinix, Digital Realty) are total company energy, boundary-labeled, never demand anchors.
Units: all energy figures are in terawatt-hours (TWh). Per-capita figures use kWh/person per IEA convention — the sole exemption, recorded here — and TWh and kWh/person never share a chart, title, or lede.
Second-hand figures (†)
A † marks a second-hand figure: a conclusion quoted from the cited report, copied with its scope note intact. We did not touch the underlying dataset and we do not re-derive the number. IEA figures are quoted under the Insubstantial Amounts rule — at most five numerical points, presented graphically, never downloadable. A leading ~ (as in ~2022) marks an approximate year, not a precise vintage.
Annual refresh — owner and checklist
Owner: the site maintainer (gzxultra). Ember publishes its Yearly Electricity Data release each April; this page is a static annual snapshot, so freshness has a named owner, not a hope.
- Watch for the Ember Yearly Electricity Data release (April).
- Run
scripts/fetch-ember.mjs, thenscripts/fetch-population.mjs. npm run build— every Phase 2 assertion must pass (BANDS lock, footnote wording, IEA point count ≤ 5, no silent zero-fill).- Update the version statement above,
src/data/provenance.json, andsrc/data/DATA_DICTIONARY.mdvintage dates. - Re-verify the hero KPI figures against the newly computed totals.
- Deploy, then confirm the production URL serves the new build.
Staleness is self-evident: the version statement always names the data vintage year, so an un-refreshed page indicts itself.
IEA licensing note
IEA "free product" data is Non-CC periea.org/terms — free to download, not openly licensed. This site quotes IEA only as small conclusion figures (≤5 numerical points: the 415 / 485 / 950 TWh anchors and the 1.5% / 3% shares), each attributed"Based on IEA data" and presented graphically. No downloadable IEA datasets; nothing a reader can reverse-engineer back into the underlying data.
What we cut and why
- UK DSIT 2.3 TWh — source URL unpinnable in the research notes; audit-flagged Tier-2. Cut until the original source is pinned.
- S&P Global / 451 Research 860→1587 TWh — single-vendor modeled series with incompatible scope; adds nothing beyond the IEA anchors.
- "2024 mining ≈160 TWh" — year-misaligned; IEA treats mining separately from its data-center series anyway.
- Google / Microsoft / Apple single-company figures— company self-reports are not comparable demand anchors.
- IEA country shares (45/25/15) — cut from on-page figures; quote-footprint discipline under the Non-CC license.
- Singapore TWh — kept, not cut, but flagged: the 7% share is official MTI (2020); the 3.71 TWh is derived (7% × Ember's Singapore 2020 total of 53.07 TWh). Never presented as an official figure.
Source: src/data/provenance.json (2026-09-21) · full dictionary: src/data/DATA_DICTIONARY.md