Article updated on September 16, 2025 by Byothe
Electricity consumption is a topic that regularly makes headlines. And it's not surprising, given the prices that energy has reached recently. However, in this article, we are not going to talk about "the increase in the price of electricity", but rather about the origin of the electricity that you consume every day. Indeed, there is a interactive map on the subject which is very well done: electricityMap.
Quite comprehensive, this map provides information on electricity production and consumption in each of the countries for which information is available. It thus includes data on carbon intensity (the amount of carbon emitted per kWh), the share of low-carbon or renewable energy in production/consumption, but also the sources of electricity or the price of the megawatt hour over the last 24 hours.
Visualizing the good students in terms of carbon emissions
Even though the map does not yet have information on all the countries in the world (in gray on the map) it allows to have a good overall idea. A large part of the European and American countries (north and south) are currently covered by this tool.
The planisphere allows you to see at a glance the good students (in green) in terms of carbon intensity and the worst ones (in brown). The visualization is done either in electricity production or in consumption. The difference between the two views lies in the fact that the electricity consumption takes into account electricity imports and exports while the production view ignores them.
Since the data displayed on the map is updated very regularly (almost real time), it is also possible to superimpose sunshine and wind on the map. This gives an idea of the production of renewable energies.
Beyond the view on the planisphere, it is possible to click on each country to obtain informations detailed. This way, you will have estimates of electricity consumption, the different energy sources used to produce electricity, and multiple related data. It is possible to view the evolution over the last 24 hours for each country using a small cursor located at the bottom of the tab on the left grouping the data.
In France, for example, at the time of writing this article, the carbon intensity was 120g per kWh. 81% of energy was labeled low carbon (thanks to nuclear) for 24% renewable energy (solar, hydraulic, wind, etc.). In addition, 48% of carbon emissions linked to electricity were caused by natural gas, which represented only 12% of electricity consumption.
A collaborative project
The data used by this tool is collected from many different sources but generally freely accessible. Anyone wishing to participate in the project can help with the integration of data, especially on countries not yet covered.
