Over 60% renewable electricity country list

Mar 18 2012 Published by Karl-Friedrich Lenz under Energy from the desert

One anti-renewable talking point often heard is that it is impossible to run an electricity system with 100% renewable.

One way (actually the only way) to prove that wrong is to point to an example where exactly that has been done.

The following list of countries getting 60% or more of their electricity from renewable energy was compiled from data at the excellent CO2scorecard site, which is mostly from 2008.  With some substantial investment in renewable energy in the years since, if anything, those percentages should have gone up, if they were not at 100 percent in the first place. I have looked at most of the countries listed there (except some very small ones). Countries getting 100 percent or close (over 95%) are in bold.

Especially the case of Paraguay is noteworthy. It doesn’t only get 100% of its own electricity from hydro, but actually exports 90 percent of its production, so in relation to consumption of electricity it produces actually about 1,000 percent renewable. I think this is a world record.

I also noted in the process that one country has even more nuclear share than France, though I won’t mention the name here. A list of countries with more than 60 percent nuclear would be very short. None have over 90 percent.

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