Quick question: Which countries produce most renewable electricity per capita?

When we talk about green power production, the metrics fail to take population size into account. So one UK student did something about it.

Currently studying Computer Science at the University of Warwick, Sreyas Nagarajan wanted to get a clear understanding of international progress towards energy transition. He quickly realised this was easier said than done. 

While there are countless lists of countries leading the way in renewables investment and output, these tend to concentrate on the same metric. Either how much is spent on wind, solar, tidal, geothermal and other sources, or how much this type of infrastructure produces en masse.

The results are therefore skewed in favour of larger countries with bigger populations, necessitating investment at large, which inevitably wind up producing the most ‘green power’. According to Nagarajan, this might be missing a major point, and a fairer way to rank league tables would be in terms of renewable electricity produced per capita. How much energy is made, per head of population. 

The resulting report – The Hidden Leaders in Renewable Energy: A Closer Look at Global Superpowers – has now been published in response to this data blind-spot. We asked Nagarajan to answer some quick questions about the his, methodology and findings. 

Why did you want to try and revise how renewable energy production was measured between nations?

I found that while total renewable energy production was the most commonly used metric to compare countries, it disadvantages smaller countries that produce less renewable energy overall due to a smaller population. By highlighting the renewable energy per capita metric, I aim to provide a more equitable and meaningful comparison that contextualises a country’s renewable energy production relative to its population. 

How did you go about the research?

To determine if comparing countries by total renewable energy production versus per capita production yields different results, I collected data from the Statistical Review of World Energy, the UN, and the CIA on the total energy production and population of the 10 largest economies. I then used Python and data science techniques to rank the countries on both metrics from 1995-2023. Finally, I compared the rankings of the countries to identify any differences. 

What did the results show? 

The results indicated that the two metrics produced significantly different rankings. While China leads in total renewable energy production, it does not even rank in the top three for renewable energy per capita. Interestingly, Canada has the highest renewable energy per capita, with Germany coming in second at a per capita rate three times lower than Canada. However, the increasing rates of renewable energy per capita in Germany and the US over the years suggest they may surpass Canada in the future. 

Renewable energy production output

Renewable energy production per capita

What do you hope will happen now the research has been published?

My primary hope is that this research highlights the dangers of relying on a single metric for comparisons. In the context of climate change, while total renewable energy production is an important figure for countries to improve, it is not suitable for comparing countries because smaller nations will naturally produce less.

In contrast, the per-capita measurement provides a better measurement by taking the population of countries into account. Moving forward, we should critically assess whether a given metric provides an accurate comparison and consider its significance carefully.

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Image: Marek Piwnicki

Graphs: Sreyas Nagarajan