Methodology

The data used on this website comes from a number of sources, listed further down. The process of validating and merging data involves several steps. Validation is mainly done by comparing calculated and listed totals, for each region and worldwide. Data points that do not meet a certain acceptable level of error are discarded. Subsequently an ideal data source is chosen for each region and year. In some cases there is only one source available for the specific region and year. If multiple sources are available, the source which includes the most specific data is chosen. For example, some data sources group certain energy types together, such as Geothermal and Biofuels. In these cases the more specific data point is preferred. To find out which source was used for each data point you can download the combined data further down on this page.

Download Data

You can download the data used in the charts and tables on this site:

Name	Years	Countries / regions	JSON	CSV
Combined sources	1971 - 2021	213	data-including-net-imports.json	data-including-net-imports.csv
Combined sources (excluding net imports)	1971 - 2021	213	data-excluding-net-imports.json	data-excluding-net-imports.csv
IIASA	1995 - 2100	1809	data-iiasa.json	data-iiasa.csv
Storage	1990 - 2020	71	storage.json

Electricity Generation Data Sources

The main electricity data used on this website comes from IEA, Ember, EIA, the World Bank and BP. The trade data used to calculate net imports comes from Enerdata, IEA and Ember. Data for each region and year is taken from one single source. Here is an overview of the relative use of each data source:

Source	Data Points Used	Years	Source Link	Gross/Net	JSON	CSV
IEAYearly	3818	1990 - 2019	www.iea.org	Gross	data-ieayearly.json	data-ieayearly.csv
EIA	1847	1980 - 2018	www.eia.gov	Net	data-eia.json	data-eia.csv
Ember	1571	2000 - 2021	ember-climate.org		data-ember.json	data-ember.csv
WorldBank	514	1971 - 1989	data.worldbank.org	Gross	data-worldbank.json	data-worldbank.csv
BP	155	1985 - 2020	www.bp.com	Gross	data-bp.json	data-bp.csv
IEAMonthly	32	2019 - 2021	www.iea.org	Gross	data-ieamonthly.json	data-ieamonthly.csv
ENTSOE	4	2018 - 2021	transparency.entsoe.eu	?	data-entsoe.json	data-entsoe.csv

Data Sources and Energy Types

	BP	EIA	ENTSOE	Ember	IEAMonthly	IEAYearly	WorldBank
Low Carbon Sources	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Fossil Fuels	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Nuclear	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Renewables Including Hydro	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Hydropower	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Renewables Except Hydro	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Wind And Solar	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	-
Geothermal And Biofuels	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	-
Unspecified Renewables	-	✓	✓	✓	✓	-	-
Wind	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	-
Solar	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	-
Geothermal	-	✓	✓	-	✓	✓	-
Biofuels	-	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	-
Coal	✓	-	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Gas	✓	-	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Oil	✓	-	✓	-	✓	✓	✓
Unspecified Fossil Fuels	✓	✓	-	✓	✓	-	-
Other	✓	-	✓	-	✓	✓	-
Net Imports	-	-	✓	✓	✓	✓	-
Primary	✓	✓	-	-	-	-	-

Additional Data Sources

The International Energy Agency (IEA) ElecImportsExports data
The Enerdata Electricity balance of trade data
The energy storage data comes from the Global Energy Storage Database Projects from Sandia National Laboratories.