The urgency to act on climate change has meant that more people than ever before are really thinking about where their power comes from and what kind of climate impact their electricity consumption has. ElectricityMap is a real-time interactive map of electricity consumption around the globe, ranked by the emission or carbon intensity of the power source.

On an hour by hour basis, you can view the carbon intensity of any area of the world, represented by a heat map. Ireland, for example, looks yellow early in the morning when the amount of greenhouse gases emitted for each unit of electricity produced is at the lower end of the scale. Green is the most desirable, environmentally friendly state, whereas deep crimson is not so good.

Weather conditions

Using the app’s slide scale, it is possible to view power sources over time and it is noteworthy to see the fluctuation in the amount of energy available from wind due to weather conditions. It’s also interesting to see what merits a green or crimson rating: France’s use of nuclear gives it a carbon intensity of 36g produced per kilowatt hour whereas Poland’s reliance on coal leads to 722g per hour. Ireland, with a reliance on gas, has a score of 170g in the same timeframe.

electricitymap.org