Energy
The world lacks a safe, low-carbon, and cheap large-scale energy infrastructure.
Until we scale up such an energy infrastructure, the world will continue to face two energy problems: hundreds of millions of people lack access to sufficient energy, and the dominance of fossil fuels in our energy system drives climate change and other health impacts such as air pollution.
To ensure everyone has access to clean and safe energy, we need to understand energy consumption and its impacts around the world today and how this has changed over time.
On this page, you can find all our data, visualizations, and writing relating to energy.
Explore Data on Energy and Electricity
Research & Writing
December 10, 2020
The world’s energy problem
The world faces two energy problems: most of our energy still produces greenhouse gas emissions, and hundreds of millions lack access to energy.
February 10, 2020
What are the safest and cleanest sources of energy?
Fossil fuels are the dirtiest and most dangerous energy sources, while nuclear and modern renewable energy sources are vastly safer and cleaner.
December 1, 2020
Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?
In most places, power from new renewables is now cheaper than new fossil fuels.
Overview Articles on Energy
Energy Access and Consumption
July 20, 2026
How much energy do data centers and artificial intelligence use?
July 5, 2021
Energy poverty and indoor air pollution: a problem as old as humanity that we can end within our lifetime
November 30, 2021
The number of people without electricity more than halved over the last 20 years
November 30, 2021
How many people do not have access to clean fuels for cooking?
November 30, 2021
Global comparison: how much energy do people consume?
December 1, 2021
The ‘Energy Ladder’: What energy sources do people on different incomes rely on?
Energy Sources and Transitions
January 26, 2026
Could biofuels meet demand for global aviation?
January 12, 2026
Putting solar panels on land used for biofuels would produce enough electricity for all cars and trucks to go electric
February 26, 2024
Tracking global data on electric vehicles
November 5, 2021
Decarbonizing electricity is only one step towards a low-carbon energy system
December 1, 2021
How have the world’s energy sources changed over the last two centuries?
November 30, 2021
Is the world making progress in decarbonizing energy?
November 30, 2021
A number of countries have decoupled economic growth from energy use, even if we take offshored production into account
December 7, 2021
How much energy do countries consume when we take offshoring into account?
November 5, 2021
Which countries get the most electricity from low-carbon sources?
November 4, 2021
When will countries phase out coal power?
Energy Prices and Impacts
March 30, 2026
Battery costs have declined by 99% in the last three decades, making electrified transport a reality
February 16, 2026
Four minutes of air conditioning
January 27, 2025
How much in subsidies do fossil fuels receive?
July 29, 2024
Air conditioning causes around 3% of greenhouse gas emissions. How will this change in the future?
December 1, 2020
Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?
June 16, 2022
How does the land use of different electricity sources compare?
February 10, 2020
What are the safest and cleanest sources of energy?
July 24, 2017
What was the death toll from Chernobyl and Fukushima?
More Key Articles on Energy
August 7, 2026
How primary energy is measured has changed across our charts
November 8, 2021
Definition: Access to Electricity
November 8, 2021
Missing data on energy: our list of datasets that are needed but are not available
April 4, 2022
Primary, secondary, final, and useful energy: Why are there different ways of measuring energy?
Country Profiles
Explore the key metrics on energy for a country of your choice. How much energy is used overall? Which sources is it produced from? Is progress being made on decarbonizing the energy mix?
Key Charts on Energy
See all charts on this topic
Featured Data on Energy
Cite this work
Our articles and data visualizations rely on work from many different people and organizations. When citing this topic page, please also cite the underlying data sources. This topic page can be cited as:
Hannah Ritchie, Pablo Rosado, and Max Roser (2023) - “Energy” Published online at OurWorldinData.org. Retrieved from: 'https://ourworldindata.org/energy' [Online Resource]BibTeX citation
@article{owid-energy,
author = {Hannah Ritchie and Pablo Rosado and Max Roser},
title = {Energy},
journal = {Our World in Data},
year = {2023},
note = {https://ourworldindata.org/energy}
}
Reuse this work freely
All visualizations, data, and articles produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.
The data produced by third parties and made available by Our World in Data is subject to the license terms from the original third-party authors. We will always indicate the original source of the data in our documentation, so you should always check the license of any such third-party data before use and redistribution.
All of our charts can be embedded in any site.