According to the OECD, only 12.6% of the world's energy supply comes from renewable sources. For OECD countries, "total renewables supply grew by only 2.4% per annum between 1971 and 2008. The contribution of renewables varied greatly by country. On the high end, renewables represented 82% of energy supply in Iceland and 43% in Norway. On the low end, renewables contributed 3% or less of the energy supply for Japan, Korea, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom.



In general, the contribution of renewables to the energy supply in non-OECD countries is higher than in OECD countries. In 2007, renewables contributed 44% to the energy supply of Brazil, 31% in Indonesia, 29% in India, 12% in China, 10% in South Africa and 3% in the Russian Federation."


Explore the Data

Here is a motion chart looking at the top five performing countries for renewable energy, expressed as a percentage of their total energy supply. Iceland is the clear leader. If you study the chart you will see that since the 1970's Iceland has almost doubled the amount of energy they obtain from renewables.