Which countries are the largest producers of renewable energy?

The incidence of renewable energy in the electricity mix has quickly grown in the last 10 years, up to 24% of the world average in 2016.

According to Enerdata Global Energy Statistical Yearbook 2017, which highlights the lower cost of these energy sources as one of the factors that have facilitated this trend.

Renewable energy producers

Currently, the countries that produce the most electricity from renewable sources are Norway and New Zealand, which generate 97,9% and 84% of their electricity with green energy, respectively. Spain enters the 'top ten' of this ranking with 40,1%. In our country, growth was more pronounced as of 2010 and it registered its all-time high in 2014, with 40,9%, according to the Enerdata report.

Country	Share of renewables in electricity production (% of total)
Norway	97,9
New Zealand	84
Colombia	82
Brazil	81,2
Canada	66,4
Sweden	57,2
Portugal	55,2
Venezuela	54
Romania	46,2
Spain	40,1

Norway

Norway is the world leader in renewable energies, something that is quite shocking if we consider that it is a large oil producer. We are talking about the first country in Europe in oil production and within the world's top 15.

Despite this, the Nordic country obtains practically 100% of your electricity demand thanks to hydroelectric generation, exporting part of it to other countries. In fact, it has just signed an agreement with the United Kingdom to build the world's largest underwater electrical connection.

This is due to the great foresight of the Norwegian authorities. Norway made a great strategic move many years ago. Instead of burning fossil fuels to generate energy, it began to export them to other countries and use the profits to build your own hydroelectric plants. To date, that investment exceeds $ 3.000 billion.

This is in contrast to what other countries in the world do. For example, China, in its brutal economic growth has relied mainly in the coal. It is true that this energy has taken the Chinese economy very far, but at the cost of dumping millions and millions of tons of CO2 and other polluting gases into the atmosphere, literally poisoning a part of its population.

The United States, on the other hand, is still producing 40% of its electricity using coal. This is taking into account that many plants have been converted to natural gas, which despite being still a fossil fuel, is much cleaner. As for our country, during 2015 coal contributed a 20,3% to the total energy demand, being the second source that contributes the most to the national system.

Electric car

On the other hand, there is electric mobility. In this field, Norway is a true world benchmark.

Currently, electric car sales have fees greater than 25% market. In other words, 1 in 4 cars sold in Norway are electric.

As if that were not enough, Norwegian electric cars can boast of being real 0 emissions cars, as they are charged with electricity from renewable energy. Something that a Tesla owner cannot do in West Virginia, United States, where the 90% of electricity comes from coal.

Subsidies

The objectives of the Norwegian government are 3 years ahead of what was expected, all thanks to government aid that eliminate taxes and provide various benefits to the owners of this type of vehicle. Like not having to pay for parking, free recharging stations and permission to use lanes exclusively for buses.

Norway is currently ready to review subsidies for electric cars, due to the incredible sales that these types of vehicles are having throughout the country.

The current incentive system was applied in 2012, but It began to receive a lot of criticism last year when sales of the Tesla Model S soared and the coffers of the country lost from 380 to 510 million dollars.

On the other hand, the Norwegian Electric Car Association excuses that benefits need to be sustained longer . Since only three percent of the cars on the road are electric, a small ratio even if Norway is currently the leader in this sector by a wide margin.