Renewable Electricity Share by Country: Data Sources

Four of the 15 primary datasets in Datadory's renewable-electricity slice publish an explicit percent-of-electricity figure, and they divide the work differently.

World Bank — Renewable Electricity Output (% of total) is purpose-built for the query: World Bank indicator EG.ELC.RNEW.ZS reports renewable electricity output as a percentage of total electricity output annually for about 266 economies. OWID Energy Data (GitHub) hides the same idea inside a wider table — the renewables_share_elec column sits among roughly 130 energy-mix indicators on one machine-readable location-year grid. IRENASTAT Online Data Query Tool offers a dedicated "renewable energy share of electricity capacity and generation (%)" table beside its raw MW and GWh tables. IEA Renewables Data Explorer / Renewable Energy Progress Tracker exposes share flows alongside Capacity, Generation and Net additions across roughly 76 regions, with forecast cases to 2030.

Everything else in the slice supports these rather than replacing them: the two Global Energy Monitor trackers explain what was built, and the UK's DESNZ collection shows what a national statistics office publishes when a single country needs the full treatment.

It measures the share of electricity generated by renewable plants — hydro plus other renewables — in total electricity generation for each economy. The World Bank compiles it from the IEA Energy Statistics Data Browser; the current vintage was accessed 2025-03-25, so observations run 1990 through 2021 and no later.

The panel holds roughly 10,000–12,000 country-year observations across about 266 entities, and the whole bulk file stays under 1 MB. Sample values captured during verification show the spread the indicator produces for 2021: Africa Eastern and Southern at 33.16 percent, Central Europe and the Baltics at 24.80 percent, the Arab World at 4.79 percent.

Two structural details matter for benchmarking. The entity list mixes countries with aggregates such as the Arab World and Africa Eastern and Southern — rank only rows carrying a real ISO-3166 code. And blank means not reported, not zero, because value arrives as null wherever an observation is missing.

The table below lines up the six records worth knowing before you build a cross-country panel. Three differences drive most of the work: what the percentage is taken of, how far the series runs, and whether aggregates ride beside countries on the same spine.

All six sit in the quality 8–9 band of Datadory's renewable-electricity slice, and each ships with field definitions, sample rows and coverage detail attached.

Every record defines its own row shape, and knowing the shape before you model saves a reshaping project later.

1. World Bank: one row per economy per year. Entity name, ISO-3 code, indicator mnemonic, integer year and one typed value - roughly 10,000–12,000 populated rows across about 266 entities, blank wherever nothing was reported.
2. OWID: one row per location per year, wide by indicator. Roughly 130 energy-mix indicators flatten onto a single location-year grid, so renewables_share_elec reads beside its sibling shares and absolute TWh columns without joins, and the companion codebook declares each column's unit and source.
3. IRENASTAT: one row per selection per technology per year. Country/area, technology, grid connection and year key the cube, and the dedicated share table keeps percentages apart from the raw MW and GWh tables beside them.
4. IEA: history and forecast in one table. Observed share flows from 2000 stand beside main-case and accelerated-case projections to 2030 across roughly 76 regions, so the forward case needs no stitching of separate vintages.

Name the economies, years and cases you actually touch when you request a sample - Germany's share history against the IEA forward case, or a forty-market ranking cut - and decide on the standing feed after real rows land. The sample's schema is the schema every scheduled delivery ships against.

Because the denominators and the compilers differ, and the gaps are large enough to break careless comparisons.

The numerator-denominator pair comes first: the World Bank divides renewable generation by total electricity output, IRENASTAT publishes separate capacity-share and generation-share tables, and DUKES Table 6.5 sets renewables' shares against aggregated energy balances and gross final consumption — three different quantities that often move in different directions. Compiler choices follow. OWID splices Ember yearly electricity data with the Energy Institute Statistical Review to build long-run country series, so its 2024 Germany value reflects Ember's accounting rather than the IEA's.

Timing widens the spread: a 2021-capped World Bank panel and a 2025-reaching OWID table describe materially different grids in fast-building markets — in OWID's 2025 world reading, solar (8.75 percent) and wind (8.54 percent) already account for roughly 17 points of combined share that a 1990–2021 panel cannot show at full weight. Finally, mind the entity list: the World Bank's 266 entities include income and regional aggregates, and IRENASTAT's 226 selections add Eurasia and Oceania. Filter to ISO-coded countries before ranking.

Behind every percentage sits a named compiler, and knowing which office produced a figure decides how defensibly it travels.

The World Bank compiles EG.ELC.RNEW.ZS from the IEA's energy statistics and republishes it as a single ratio series. The IEA's own explorer computes shares straight out of its scenario database, which is why history and projection read from one table. IRENA, the intergovernmental renewable-energy agency, maintains the capacity and generation cubes its dedicated share table derives from. OWID splices Ember yearly electricity data with the Energy Institute Statistical Review to build long-run country series, so its values carry Ember's accounting rather than the IEA's. National detail comes from statistical offices - the UK's DESNZ collection being the worked example, publishing de-rated capacity and load factors on two documented bases down to local-authority level.

Two facility inventories round out the slice: the quality-score-9 Global Wind Power Tracker and Global Solar Power Tracker. They establish what stands and what is queued - existence evidence rather than output - which is why they pair with a share series instead of substituting for one.

The renewable electricity data guide is the pillar for this industry: it maps all 17 pooled records - 15 primary plus 2 related - with field dictionaries, coverage windows and the joins between them. The renewable electricity data hub indexes every record, and the best renewable-electricity datasets page ranks the pool by quality score.

From there, go where your deliverable points. Capacity and generation levels behind the shares live in IRENASTAT; the trade-offs between the World Bank panel and the IEA's forecast view are set out in our dedicated comparison; modelling teams can see how data scientists rank renewable electricity data; and if the share number is the start of a yield model rather than the end of a chart, the hourly simulation route through Renewables.ninja takes over where national statistics stop.