Project · Data Visualization
The Global Electricity Transition
How the world’s electricity mix changed between 2000 and 2024.
A data visualization project of electricity generation built with D3 on the OWID energy dataset. The brief was to help an energy policy analyst read 25 years of country level electricity data and decide whether the global transition to renewables is real.
Aims
- Q1
Do countries with similar economic profiles have similar levels of renewable adoption, or does wealth get overridden by other factors?
- Q2
Does a country’s geography shape the kind of energy it produces, and does that decide which nations lead each source?
- Q3
Is the global energy transition a displacement of fossil fuels, or is it renewables being added on top of growing total demand?
Preliminary
Two small charts before the main designs. One shows generation by source over 25 years; the other is a snapshot of 2024. Coal still leads, and it’s still growing. Wind and solar are climbing but small in absolute TWh.
How each source’s absolute generation (TWh) has changed over 25 years.
A snapshot of each source in absolute generation (TWh).
Design 1: Choropleth to cartogram morph
A world map that toggles between a choropleth (color is renewable share) and a cartogram (area is GDP, color is renewable share). Drag the slider to change the year. Click two countries to compare them side by side.
Takeaway
Wealth is a weaker predictor of renewable adoption than I expected going in. Some big economies stayed yellow the whole time; some small ones went deep green. The cartogram is what makes that legible: a high GDP country that hasn’t transitioned reads as a big yellow circle, and you can’t miss it.
Design 2: Coordinated views dashboard
Three linked views: a global mix donut, a per country choropleth, and a top 15 producers bar chart. Picking a source in one updates the others. Unsyncing them lets you compare two sources at the same time.
Takeaway
No single country tops every source. Geography clearly does shape which energies a nation develops, so the country leading on coal is almost never the country leading on solar.
Design 3: Bump-stream hybrid
A bump chart fused with a streamgraph. Vertical position encodes rank; stream width encodes TWh (or share). Crossings show the year one source overtook another. Press Play to animate the build through 2000–2024.
Takeaway
The transition is mostly addition, not displacement. Fossil generation didn’t shrink. Renewables grew on top of a total that kept growing. Coal’s stream stays wide; solar and wind layer in above it.