Chart: Which countries get more than 10% of their power from wind?

Canary Media’s chart of the week translates crucial data about the clean energy transition into a visual format. Canary thanks Natural Power for its support of this feature.

China and the United States lead the world in the number of gigawatts of wind power installed, but neither one makes the list of the top countries in terms of the share of electricity generation they get from wind. European countries have made the most headway on adding wind to their electric grids, while Latin America contributes some unexpected players to the list.

Twenty countries generated more than 10 percent of their electricity from wind in 2021, according to Ember’s 2022 Global Electricity Review. Denmark is at the top of the list, with a staggering 47.8 percent of its grid powered by wind energy.

Uruguay, No. 2 on the list, is a huge success story for renewables in Latin America. Moving at a breakneck pace, the country went from having virtually no wind generation in 2007 to emerging as a world leader in wind. By 2015, it was already generating more than 20 percent of its electricity from wind, and last year that grew to 43 percent. Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Brazil are also generating significant proportions of their power from wind, and Brazil is eighth globally in terms of total installed wind capacity.

The share of a country’s electricity generated by renewables is an important metric since it indicates the displacement of dirtier energy sources such as coal and fossil gas. ​“Three countries — the Netherlands, Australia and Vietnam — shifted over 8% of their total electricity demand from fossil fuels to wind and solar in just the last two years,” Ember reports.

But the addition of wind capacity still is not happening fast enough. According to the Global Wind Energy Council’s Global Wind Report 2022, released this week, ​“there needs to be a four-fold increase in new wind energy installations this decade to keep on track for a 1.5°C world.” 

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