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Hydroelectric generation at scale dates back more than a century, and is still our largest renewable source — excluding traditional biomass, it still accounts for approximately half of renewable generation.
However, the scale of hydroelectric power generation varies significantly across the world. This interactive chart shows its contribution by country. This interactive chart shows the share of primary energy that comes from hydropower.
This interactive chart shows the share of electricity that comes from hydropower. This interactive chart shows the amount of energy generated from wind each year. This includes both onshore and offshore wind farms.
Wind generation at scale — compared to hydropower, for example — is a relatively modern renewable energy source but is growing quickly in many countries across the world.
The previous section looked at the energy output from wind farms across the world. Energy output is a function of power installed capacity multiplied by the time of generation. Energy generation is therefore a function of how much wind capacity is installed.
This interactive chart shows installed wind capacity — including both onshore and offshore — across the world.
This interactive chart shows the share of primary energy that comes from wind. This interactive chart shows the share of electricity that comes from wind. This interactive chart shows the amount of energy generated from solar power each year.
Solar generation at scale — compared to hydropower, for example — is a relatively modern renewable energy source but is growing quickly in many countries across the world. The previous section looked at the energy output from solar across the world. Energy generation is therefore a function of how much solar capacity is installed.
This interactive chart shows installed solar capacity across the world. This interactive chart shows the share of primary energy that comes from solar power. This interactive chart shows the share of electricity that comes from solar power.
Traditional biomass — the burning of charcoal, organic wastes, and crop residues — was an important energy source for a long period of human history. It remains an important source in lower-income settings today.
However, high-quality estimates of energy consumption from these sources are difficult to find. The Energy Institute Statistical Review of World Energy — our main data source on energy — only publishes data on commercially traded energy, so traditional biomass is not included.
However, modern biofuels are included in this energy data. Bioethanol and biodiesel — fuel made from crops such as corn, sugarcane, hemp, and cassava — are now a key transport fuel in many countries. This interactive chart shows modern biofuel production across the world.
This interactive chart shows the installed capacity of geothermal energy across the world. Our articles and data visualizations rely on work from many different people and organizations.
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All of our charts can be embedded in any site. Increased demand and procurement requires more of these technologies to be manufactured and developed, causing reduced costs due to learning and economies of scale, which increases the incentive for additional procurement.
States offer added incentives, making renewables even easier to implement from a cost perspective. A renewable portfolio standard requires electric utilities to deliver a certain amount of electricity from renewable or alternative energy sources by a given date.
State standards range from modest to ambitious, and qualifying energy sources vary. Although climate change may not be the prime motivation behind these standards, they can deliver significant greenhouse gas reductions and other benefits, including job creation, energy security, and cleaner air.
Most states allow utilities to comply with the renewable portfolio standard through tradeable credits that utilities can sell for additional revenue. In states with a renewable portfolio standard , utilities consider cost, intermittency and resource availability in choosing technologies that satisfy this requirement.
In the U. transportation sector, The Energy Policy Act of created a Renewable Fuel Standard that required 2. The Energy Independence and Security Act of created a new Renewable Fuel Standard, which increased the required volumes of to 36 billion gallons by , or about 7 percent of expected annual gasoline and diesel consumption above a business-as-usual scenario.
Renewable energy comes from sources that can be regenerated or naturally replenished. The main sources are:. All sources of renewable energy are used to generate electric power.
In addition, geothermal steam is used directly for heating and cooking. Biomass and solar sources are also used for space and water heating. Ethanol and biodiesel and to a lesser extent, gaseous biomethane are used for transportation.
Renewable energy sources are considered to be zero wind, solar, and water , low geothermal or neutral biomass with regard to greenhouse gas emissions during their operation. A neutral source has emissions that are balanced by the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed during the growing process. Large conventional hydropower projects currently provide the majority of renewable electric power generation worldwide.
With about 1, gigawatts GW of global capacity, hydropower produced an estimated 4, terawatt hours TWh of the roughly 26, TWh total global electricity in The United States is the fourth-largest producer of hydropower after China, Brazil, and Canada.
In , a much wetter than average year in the U. Northwest, the United States generated 7. The Department of Energy has found that the untapped generation potential at existing U.
dams designed for purposes other than power production i. Hydropower operational costs are relatively low, and hydropower generates little to no greenhouse gas emissions. The main environmental impact is that a dam to create a reservoir or divert water to a hydropower plant changes the ecosystem and physical characteristic of the river.
Waterpower captures the energy of flowing water in rivers, streams, and waves to generate electricity. As water travels downstream, it is channeled down through a pipe or other intake structure in a dam penstock. The flowing water turns the blades of a turbine, generating electricity in the powerhouse, located at the base of the dam.
Small hydropower projects, generally less than 10 megawatts MW , and micro-hydropower less than 1 MW are less costly to develop and have a lower environmental impact than large conventional hydropower projects.
In , the total amount of small hydro installed worldwide was 78 GW. China had the largest share at 54 percent. China, Italy, Japan, Norway and the United States are the top five small hydro countries by installed capacity. Many countries have renewable energy targets that include the development of small hydro projects.
Hydrokinetic electric power, including wave and tidal power, is a form of unconventional hydropower that captures energy from waves or currents and does not require dam construction. These technologies are in various stages of research, development, and deployment. In , a MW tidal power plant in South Korea began operation, doubling the global capacity to MW.
By the end of , global capacity was about MW. Low-head hydro is a commercially available source of hydrokinetic electric power that has been used in farming areas for more than years. Generally, the capacity of these devices is small, ranging from 1kW to kW.
Pumped storage hydropower plants use inexpensive electricity typically overnight during periods of low demand to pump water from a lower-lying storage reservoir to a storage reservoir located above the power house for later use during periods of peak electricity demand.
Although economically viable, this strategy is not considered renewable since it uses more electricity than it generates. Wind was the second largest renewable energy source worldwide after hydropower for power generation. Wind power produced more than 6 percent of global electricity in with GW of global capacity Capacity is indicative of the maximum amount of electricity that can be generated when the wind is blowing at sufficient levels for a turbine.
Because the wind is not always blowing, wind farms do not always produce as much as their capacity. With around MW, China had the largest installed capacity of wind generation in The United States, with wind generation, with Texas greatly leading all other states in installed capacity, at 27 percent of the U.
In , wind energy overtook hydropower for the largest share of renewable generation in the U. Although people have harnessed the energy generated by the movement of air for hundreds of years, modern turbines reflect significant technological advances over early windmills and even over turbines from just 10 years ago.
Generating electric power using wind turbines creates no greenhouse gases, but since a wind farm includes dozens or more turbines, widely-spaced, it requires thousands of acres of land. For example, Lone Star is a MW wind farm on approximately 36, acres in Texas.
However, most of the land in between turbines can still be utilized for farming or grazing. Average turbine size has been steadily increasing over the past 30 years. Today, new onshore turbines are typically in the range of 2 — 5 MW. The largest production models, designed for off-shore use can generate 12 MW; some innovative turbine models under development are expected to generate more than 14 MW in offshore projects in the coming years.
Due to higher costs and technology constraints, off-shore capacity, approximately GE, Vox, Solar energy resources are massive and widespread, and they can be harnessed anywhere that receives sunlight.
A number of factors, including geographic location, time of day, and weather conditions, all affect the amount of energy that can be harnessed for electricity production or heating purposes.
Solar photovoltaics are the fastest growing electricity source. Solar hot water heaters, typically found on the roofs of homes and apartments, provide residential hot water by using a solar collector, which absorbs solar energy, that in turn heats a conductive fluid, and transfers the heat to a water tank.
Modern collectors are designed to be functional even in cold climates and on overcast days. Electricity generated from solar energy emits no greenhouse gases. The main environmental impacts of solar energy come from the use of some hazardous materials arsenic and cadmium in the manufacturing of PV and the large amount of land required, hundreds of acres, for a utility-scale solar project.
Solar collectors i. The steam is piped to an onsite turbine-generator to produce electricity, which is then transmitted over power lines. On cloudy days, the plant has a supplementary natural gas boiler. Department of Energy, Biomass energy sources are used to generate electricity and provide direct heating, and can be converted into biofuels as a direct substitute for fossil fuels used in transportation.
Unlike intermittent wind and solar energy, biomass can be used continuously or according to a schedule. Biomass is derived from wood, waste, landfill gas, crops, and alcohol fuels.
Traditional biomass, including waste wood, charcoal, and manure, has been a source of energy for domestic cooking and heating throughout human history.
In rural areas of the developing world, it remains the dominant fuel source. Globally in , bioenergy accounted for about The growing use of biomass has resulted in increasing international trade in biomass fuels in recent years; wood pellets, biodiesel, and ethanol are the main fuels traded internationally.
In , global biomass electric power capacity stood at GW, increasing 5. The United States had 16 GW of installed biomass-fueled electric generation capacity.
In the United States, most of the electricity from wood biomass is generated at lumber and paper mills using their own wood waste; in addition, wood waste is used to generate the heat for drying wood products and other manufacturing processes. Biomass waste is mostly municipal solid waste , i.
On average, a ton of garbage generates to kWh of electricity. Landfill gas contains methane that can be captured, processed and used to fuel power plants, manufacturing facilities, vehicles and homes. In the United States, there is currently more than 2 GW of installed landfill gas-fired generation capacity at more than projects.
In addition to landfill gas, biofuels can be synthesized from dedicated crops, trees and grasses, agricultural waste, and algae feedstock; these include renewable forms of diesel, ethanol, butanol, methane, and other hydrocarbons.
Corn ethanol is the most widely used biofuel in the United States. Roughly 39 percent of the U. corn crop was diverted to the production of ethanol for gasoline in , up from 20 percent in Gasoline with up to 10 percent ethanol E10 can be used in most vehicles without further modification, while special flexible fuel vehicles can use a gasoline-ethanol blend that has up to 85 percent ethanol E Closed-loop biomass, where power is generated using feedstocks grown specifically for the purpose of energy production, is generally considered to be carbon dioxide neutral because the carbon dioxide emitted during combustion of the fuel was previously captured during the growth of the feedstock.
While biomass can avoid the use of fossil fuels, the net effect of biopower and biofuels on greenhouse gas emissions will depend on full lifecycle emissions for the biomass source, how it is used, and indirect land-use effects.
Overall, however, biomass energy can have varying impacts on the environment. Wood biomass, for example, contains sulfur and nitrogen, which yield air pollutants sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, though in much lower quantities than coal combustion. Geothermal provided an estimated TWh globally in , with 97 TWh in the form of electricity with an estimated Total global electricity generation in was 26, TWh.
In the United States, nearly 17 TWh of geothermal electricity was generated in , making up about 3. Seven states generated electricity from geothermal energy: California, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon and Utah.
Of these, California accounted for 80 percent of this generation. Geothermal areas are generally located near tectonic plate boundaries, where there are earthquakes and volcanoes.
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