The leading countries for installed renewable energy in 2023 were China, the United States, and Brazil. China was the leader in renewable energy installations, with a capacity of around 1,453 gigawatts. The U.S., in second place, had a capacity of around 388 gigawatts. Renewable energy is an important step in addressing climate change and mitigating the consequences of this phenomenon. Renewable energy capacity and productionRenewable power capacity is defined as the maximum generating capacity of installations that use renewable sources to generate electricity. The share of renewable energy over the world’s power production has increased in recent years, surpassing 30 percent in 2023. Renewable energy consumption varies from country to country. The leading countries for renewable energy consumption are China, the United States, and Brazil.Renewable energy sourcesThere are various sources of renewable energy used globally, including bioenergy, solar energy, hydropower, and wind energy, to name a few. Globally, China and Canada are the top two countries in terms of generating the most energy through hydropower. Regarding solar power, China, the United States, and Japan boast the highest installed capacities worldwide.

Asia accounted for the highest share of renewable electricity generation worldwide in 2022, with about 3,748 terawatt hours of electricity generated. North America ranked second, with renewable sources accounting for roughly 1,4 terawatt hours of power output.

Global Renewable Electricity by Country, 2023 Discover more data with ReportLinker!

The average for 2022 based on 189 countries was 17.69 million kilowatts. The highest value was in China: 1156.13 million kilowatts and the lowest value was in Bermuda: 0 million kilowatts. The indicator is available from 1980 to 2023. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

As of February 2025, several countries across the European Union had established ambitious renewable power targets. Estonia and Sweden plan to achieve a 100 percent renewable electricity generation by 2030. In contrast, Poland's renewable targets for that year were just over 50 percent. According to the EU Renewable Energy Directive, countries in the European Union must reach a share of at least 42.5 percent of renewables in their total energy consumption, although the directive encourages to aim for 45 percent. Renewable energy pipeline in Europe The further deployment of renewable technologies in the region is essential to achieve these targets. As of February 2025, prospective wind energy projects in Europe’s renewable pipeline amounted to more than 645 gigawatts, although from this, only 22 megawatts were already in the construction stage. Northern Europe accounted for most of the wind energy planned capacity in the region. Regarding solar, Europe had a utility-scale prospective capacity of 255 gigawatts, with Southern Europe accounting for most of planned installations.
Europe’s wind and solar outlook In the next years, wind and solar installations are forecast to more than double in the European Union. It is estimated that in 2030, the region’s solar capacity will amount to some 625 gigawatts, growing from the 257 gigawatts operating at the end of 2023. For wind, forecasts point to an installed capacity of roughly 400 gigawatts by 2030. Approximately 20 percent of this capacity will correspond to offshore installations.

In 2023, hydropower generation worldwide stood at 4.2 petawatt hours. This was the largest source of renewable energy worldwide, followed by wind and solar. Wind power generation stood at 2.3 petawatt hours that year.

European Renewable Power Generation by Country, 2023 Discover more data with ReportLinker!

Forecast: Renewable Electricity in ASEAN Countries 2023 - 2027 Discover more data with ReportLinker!

This table expresses the use of renewable energy as gross final consumption of energy. Figures are presented in an absolute way, as well as related to the total energy use in the Netherlands. The total gross final energy consumption in the Netherlands (the denominator used to calculate the percentage of renewable energy per ‘Energy sources and techniques’) can be found in the table as ‘Total, including non-renewables’ and Energy application ‘Total’. The gross final energy consumption for the energy applications ‘Electricity’ and ‘Heat’ are also available. With these figures the percentages of the different energy sources and applications can be calculated; these values are not available in this table. The gross final energy consumption for ‘Transport’ is not available because of the complexity to calculate this. More information on this can be found in the yearly publication ‘Hernieuwbare energie in Nederland’.

Renewable energy is energy from wind, hydro power, the sun, the earth, heat from outdoor air and biomass. This is energy from natural processes that is replenished constantly.

The figures are broken down into energy source/technique and into energy application (electricity, heat and transport).

This table focuses on the share of renewable energy according to the EU Renewable Energy Directive. Under this directive, countries can apply an administrative transfer by purchasing renewable energy from countries that have consumed more renewable energy than the agreed target. For 2020, the Netherlands has implemented such a transfer by purchasing renewable energy from Denmark. This transfer has been made visible in this table as a separate energy source/technique and two totals are included; a total with statistical transfer and a total without statistical transfer.

Figures for 2020 and before were calculated based on RED I; in accordance with Eurostat these figures will not be modified anymore. Inconsistencies with other tables undergoing updates may occur.

Data available from: 1990

Status of the figures: This table contains definite figures up to and including 2022 and figures of 2023 are revised provisional figures.

Changes as of January 2025 Renewable cooling has been added as Energy source and technique from 2021 onwards, in accordance with RED II. Figures for 2020 and earlier follow RED I definitions, renewable cooling isn’t a part of these definitions.
The energy application “Heat” has been renamed to “Heating and cooling”, in accordance with RED II definitions. RED II is the current Renewable Energy Directive which entered into force in 2021

Changes as of November 15th 2024 Figures for 2021-2023 have been adjusted. 2022 is now definitive, 2023 stays revised provisional. Because of new insights for windmills regarding own electricity use and capacity, figures on 2021 have been revised.

Changes as of March 2024: Figures of the total energy applications of biogas, co-digestion of manure and other biogas have been restored for 2021 and 2022. The final energy consumption of non-compliant biogas (according to RED II) was wrongly included in the total final consumption of these types of biogas. Figures of total biogas, total biomass and total renewable energy were not influenced by this and therefore not adjusted.

When will new figures be published? Provisional figures on the gross final consumption of renewable energy in broad outlines for the previous year are published each year in June. Revised provisional figures for the previous year appear each year in June.

In November all figures on the consumption of renewable energy in the previous year will be published. These figures remain revised provisional, definite figures appear in November two years after the reporting year. Most important (expected) changes between revised provisional figures in November and definite figures a year later are the figures on solar photovoltaic energy. The figures on the share of total energy consumption in the Netherlands could also still be changed by the availability of adjusted figures on total energy consumption.

The global renewable power support policy dataset was compiled by Sarah Hafner (Anglia Ruskin University, United Kingdom) and Johan Lilliestam (Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS), Germany) in February-July 2017 and completed during 2017. The work was led by Johan Lilliestam but each author gathered half of the data. The data was formatted and checked for internal consistency by Tim Tröndle, IASS.

All non-commercial users are allowed to use and manipulate our data, but are required to give appropriate attribution. Hence, please cite this data as:

Hafner, S. & Lilliestam, J. (2019): The global renewable power support dataset. Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) & Anglia Ruskin University, Potsdam & Cambridge. Doi: https://doi.org/ 10.5281/zenodo.3371375.

If you are interested in contributing to and further developing the dataset: please contact Johan Lilliestam (IASS Potsdam).

The search was done in publically available sources, including but not limited to the IEA renewables policy database, res-legal.eu, Worldbank data, as well as data from the responsible national ministries.

Our data holds information on 10 specific policy instruments explicitly dedicated to the support for expansion of renewable electricity generation 1990-2016; some instruments, including taxation of non-renewables or emission trading, affect other sectors than renewable power, but are mentioned in their original policy description to also be dedicated to increasing renewable power. Our data concerns national policy measures, but ignores policies enacted on higher (e.g. EU-level in Europe) or lower (e.g. state-level policies in Canada, USA) political levels. For example, the “no support” entry for the United Arab Emirates indicates that there were no national-level policies: all policies were, in this case, emirate-specific.

The data exists in two versions: one version readable for humans (RE_policies_fullglobal.xlsx) and for each instrument type as .csv. The information in the two versions is identical and differs only in the way it is displayed.

Please refer to the metadata file for a detailed description of the dataset and the data categories.

Greenland GL: Renewable Electricity Output: % of Total Electricity Output data was reported at 81.292 % in 2015. This records an increase from the previous number of 81.198 % for 2014. Greenland GL: Renewable Electricity Output: % of Total Electricity Output data is updated yearly, averaging 58.185 % from Dec 1990 (Median) to 2015, with 26 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 81.292 % in 2015 and a record low of 0.000 % in 1992. Greenland GL: Renewable Electricity Output: % of Total Electricity Output data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Greenland – Table GL.World Bank: Energy Production and Consumption. Renewable electricity is the share of electrity generated by renewable power plants in total electricity generated by all types of plants.; ; IEA Statistics © OECD/IEA 2018 (http://www.iea.org/stats/index.asp), subject to https://www.iea.org/t&c/termsandconditions/; Weighted average; Restricted use: Please contact the International Energy Agency for third-party use of these data.

Estonia EE: Renewable Electricity Output: % of Total Electricity Output data was reported at 14.419 % in 2015. This records an increase from the previous number of 11.160 % for 2014. Estonia EE: Renewable Electricity Output: % of Total Electricity Output data is updated yearly, averaging 0.417 % from Dec 1990 (Median) to 2015, with 26 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 14.419 % in 2015 and a record low of 0.000 % in 1991. Estonia EE: Renewable Electricity Output: % of Total Electricity Output data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Estonia – Table EE.World Bank: Energy Production and Consumption. Renewable electricity is the share of electrity generated by renewable power plants in total electricity generated by all types of plants.; ; IEA Statistics © OECD/IEA 2018 (http://www.iea.org/stats/index.asp), subject to https://www.iea.org/t&c/termsandconditions/; Weighted Average; Restricted use: Please contact the International Energy Agency for third-party use of these data.

In recent years scrutiny over the environmental impact of more traditional energy sources has seen huge growth in renewables. The share of energy from renewable sources used in global energy generation has been rising annually, reaching roughly 30 percent in 2023. Increasing capacity and production As renewable shares continue to grow, so does the installed capacity. Since 2010 the cumulative renewable energy capacity has risen from 1.2 terawatts to 3.9 terawatts in 2023. Renewable electricity production has also increased significantly, rising to 7.9 petawatts hour in 2021. Despite this impressive and steady growth, the consumption of renewable energy still pales in comparison when compared to fossil fuel consumption. Consumption on the rise In the past two decades, global consumption of renewables has risen exponentially from just 2.6 exajoules in 2000, to over 45 exajoules in 2022. Globally, both China and the United States are the leading consumers of renewable energy, with a combined consumption of 21.7 exajoules.

Norway NO: Renewable Electricity Output: % of Total Electricity Output data was reported at 97.710 % in 2015. This records an increase from the previous number of 97.656 % for 2014. Norway NO: Renewable Electricity Output: % of Total Electricity Output data is updated yearly, averaging 99.486 % from Dec 1990 (Median) to 2015, with 26 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 99.817 % in 1992 and a record low of 95.733 % in 2010. Norway NO: Renewable Electricity Output: % of Total Electricity Output data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Norway – Table NO.World Bank: Energy Production and Consumption. Renewable electricity is the share of electrity generated by renewable power plants in total electricity generated by all types of plants.; ; IEA Statistics © OECD/IEA 2018 (http://www.iea.org/stats/index.asp), subject to https://www.iea.org/t&c/termsandconditions/; Weighted Average; Restricted use: Please contact the International Energy Agency for third-party use of these data.

Renewable electricity is the share of electrity generated by renewable power plants in total electricity generated by all types of plants.

This horizontal bar chart displays electricity production from renewable sources, excluding hydroelectric (% of total) by country and is filtered where the country is Portugal. The data is about countries per year.

This API provides international data on renewable electricity capacity and electricity generation. Data organized by country. Users of the EIA API are required to obtain an API Key via this registration form: http://www.eia.gov/beta/api/register.cfm

This bar chart displays electricity production from renewable sources, excluding hydroelectric (% of total) by country using the aggregation average. The data is about countries.

This horizontal bar chart displays electricity production from renewable sources, excluding hydroelectric (% of total) by country using the aggregation average and is filtered where the country is Belgium. The data is about countries per year.

This dataset is about countries in Middle Africa per year, featuring 4 columns: country, date, electricity production from oil sources, and renewable energy consumption. The preview is ordered by date (descending).