> Albania, Bhutan, Nepal, Paraguay, Iceland, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo produced more than 99.7 per cent of the electricity they consumed using geothermal, hydro, solar or wind power.

Let's head to electricitymaps.com !

Albania (https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/AL/live/fifteen_min...)

- On 2026-04-12 16:45 GMT+2, 22,67% of electricity consumed by Albania is imported from Greece, which generates 22% of its electricity from gas. Interestingly, Albania exports about as much to Montenegro as it imports from Greece.

Bhutan:

- 100% hydro, makes perfect sense

Nepal:

- 98% hydro, a bit of solar for good measure

Iceland:

- 70% hydro, 30% geo

Paraguay:

- 99,9% hydro

Ethiopia:

- 96,4% hydro

DRC

- 99.6% hydro

So, the lessons for all other countries in the world is pretty clear: grow yourselves some mountains, dig yourselves a big river, and dam, baby, dam !!

(I'm kidding, but I'm sure someone has a pie-in-the-sky geoengineering startup about to disrupt topography using either AI, blockchain, or both.)

The article cites research publication by Stanford University professor of civil and environmental engineering Mark Z. Jacobson, very famous 100% wind, water, and sunlight (WWS) advocate.

His past research was already cited by Leonardo DiCaprio on Sept. 23 2014, during opening of the UN Climate Summit.

“The good news is that renewable energy is not only achievable but good economic policy,” DiCaprio told the more than 120 world leaders assembled. “New research shows that by 2050 clean, renewable energy could supply 100 percent of the world’s energy needs using existing technologies, and it would create millions of jobs.”

https://cee.stanford.edu/news/what-do-mark-z-jacobson-leonar...

The 100% renewable papers by Mark Z. Jacobson were subject to strong criticism. Jacobson filed a lawsuit in 2017 against the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and Christopher Clack as the principal author of the paper for defamation. In February 2024, Jacobson lost the appeal and was required to pay defendants more than $500,000 in legal fees.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Z._Jacobson

Jacobson is also very strong critic of nuclear energy. In calculating CO2 emissions from using nuclear energy, he includes carbon emissions associated with the burning of cities resulting from a nuclear war aided by the expansion of nuclear energy and weapons to countries previously without them.

Jacobson assumes that some form of nuclear induced burning that will occur once every 30 years.

Pushback against the outliers of small + blessed with hydro and geothermal is overshadowing real wins:

- California: 83% renewable, dominated by solar

- Spain: 73%, dominated by solar & wind

- Portugal: 90%, dominated by wind & solar

- The Netherlands: 86%, dominated by solar & wind

- Great Britain: 71%, dominated by wind & solar

There's real momentum happening.

Specifically Albania, Bhutan, Nepal, Paraguay, Iceland, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Not to downplay the positive steps that are being taken towards using renewable energy worldwide, but one must point out that all those countries except one are almost exclusively using hydroelectric power, whose availability at such scale is a geographical lottery. As for Iceland, which also relies mostly on hydroelectric power but not in such great a proportion, it makes up for it thanks to easy and abundantly available geothermal power (which, though environmentally friendly, is arguably not technically renewable).

Probably at least slightly misleading, just reading the names of some of the countries in the list (I am from South Africa).

Just because a country generates 100% of its energy from renewables, it doesn't mean that its enough to power the entire or even majority of the country. Case in point: DRC. I believe only half of the population has access to electricity. It's been a while since I've looked into continental stats, but a quick Google search suggests the situation hasn't changed that much in the last few years.

I live in one of those countries, and while renewable electricity helped to cushion the concern for house electricity, most of the logistics (that being the supply chain for basic commodities) are transported by oil (specifically diesel). Which further increases inflation for import dependent countries. Meaning even for those states (except those that don't import oil to move cars in the country) it will regardless cause an economic crisis.

One state is considered to be fully 'renewable' if the means of transport (excluding Airplanes since I can't find a suitable alternative ) for land is done via electric cars

Meanwhile the US is spending billions to cancel renewable energy.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/23/climate/offshore-wind-gas...

Japan used to have many dams for the electricity but then scaled them down (or not scale it up) due to environmental concern. I'm not sure it was a right call given the limited availability of options there. They are also strong anti-nuclear sentiment which I have some sympathy. However you need something you have to make a call.

This map says hydro share is like 8%. https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/JP/live/fifteen_min...

Article from 2024: still super impressive in 2024 yet I'd like more recent numbers to see the progress.

This is a bit of a weird list. This looks at the percentage of electricity generation that is renewable. But some of these countries are net importers. I think the final row in the table from the report [1] is more interesting. It compares the generation of renewable energy as a percentage of demand. There are quite a few countries that don't quite have 100% renewable generation, but generate way more than 100% of their demand as renewable energy.

[1]: https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/WWSBook/Countri...

Seeing so many sub-Saharan countries generating >= 50% of their electricity from renewables makes me smile: https://static.the-independent.com/2024/04/16/11/renewable%2...

What a great beacon of hope to consider that we are closer than we thought in the clean energy rollout ! I read somewhere, not sure though how it is assessed/how valid it is, that last year 50% world-wide came already from clean power, with countries like the UK around 50% in the middle and others like Spain far ahead.

Sadly these are edge cases due to either a lot of hydro, which is terrible for the environment in most cases or having neighbors that buy the renewable and help stabilize the grid with conventional energy.

The best way to go green is still going green yourself. Get some panels, batery, inverter and go where no government wants you to go, off-grid. (And a gas generator, too, just in case...)

Perovskite Tandem are the best , according to the graph.

Why is it that those are reserved for ultra-big utility companies and I cannot buy those for my home or even my balcony?

Mixing in geothermal and hydro really distorts the story. Although technically correct, the common usage connotation of “renewable energy “ today is “wind and solar”.

This article omits important context : these 7 countries have massive hydro power (+geothermal for Iceland) for very little demand.

The only countries with <100 g CO2/kWh and >10TWh/y are using nuclear. Large scale batteries are exciting for the future but need more development. The 2 biggest battery investments in the world are being made in Australia and California, yet still produce 4x the g CO2/kWh of France.

https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/5y/yearly

Honestly surprised Iceland doesn't rely more on geothermal, the entire country is a volcano! I had expected a 70-30 split in the other direction

i love that in a lot of countries people think these other countries are in the sticks and that they are modern... (ofc depending who u talk to but im sure we all know such a person...) :) a lot of perceptions based on old world views. Love to see these countries do so well on it. There might be many problems to solve still but it provides a degree of self reliance for energy that is really important today for a country i'd think

All these industrial powerhouses like Iceland and Albania!

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