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Jun 28

Iceland is green leader in power production

For the last ten years, Iceland has been the world’s largest electricity producer per capita. The Icelandic generation is much higher (per capita) than in any other country. Norway comes in second place, generating close to half of the electricity per capita of that of Iceland. The Icelandic annual generation is close to 54 MWh per capita, while Norway generates close to 26 MWh per capita.

Iceland-Green-Power-Electricity-Production-Per-Capita-Comparison-2015_Askja-Energy-Partners-2016Other countries on the top-ten list of the world’s largest electricity producers per capita are Canada, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Finland, Sweden, United States of America (USA), Qatar and Bahrain.

Most of the countries on the top-ten list of the world’s highest electricity producing countries per capita generate most or all their electricity from fossil fuels (gas and coal). However, both Iceland and Norway produce close to 100% of their electricity from renewable sources (both countries draw from hydroelectric power, but Iceland has a unique energy source in its geothermal power).

Canada, Finland and Sweden all have extensive hydropower sources and utilize them for electricity generation. Thus, they might be described as semi renewable electric producers (thus marked with light green color on the graph, whereas Iceland and Norway are marked with dark green).

Jun 26

Electricity statistics update 2015

The Icelandic National Energy Authority (NEA) has published statistics regarding the electricity industry in 2015. You can access the publication in Icelandic on NEA’s website (link to the pdf-file). Here are some of the key numbers:

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TOTAL ELECTRICITY GENERATION:          18,798 GWh (2015)

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ELECTRICITY GENERATION SHARE BY SOURCE:

Hydro Power 13,780 GWh          73%
Geothermal Power     5,003 GWh         27%
Other 15 GWh            0%
Total 18,798 GWh        100%

NB: 2015 is the third year the NEA publishes data for generated wind power in Iceland. Electricity generated by wind power (11 GWh) and fossil fuels (4 GWh) was to small amount to be measured as a percentage on the scale of the table above. The combined wind- and fossil fuels generation amounted to 15 GWh, which was less than 0.001% of all electricity generated in Iceland in 2015.

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ELECTRICITY POWER CAPACITY:  

Hydro Power  1,986 MW
Geothermal Power     665 MW
Wind Power         3 MW
Fossil Fuels     117 MW
Total Power Capacity 2,771 MW

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ELECTRICITY CONSUMPTION SHARE:

Energy Intensive Industries 77%
General Consumption     18%
Other (losses)     5%
Total 100%

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You will find more Icelandic energy data in our special data-section.