Live-Data Electricity Production Map and CO2 Emissions

Electricity Map was developed by Tomorrow. The project is based on open source, and the map is a “work in progress”. If you are particularly interested you should take a look at the technical explanations. Electricity Map is also awailable as an App “work in progress”. Particularly interested should take a look at the technical explanations. Electricity Map is also available as App on Apple’s AppStore and Google Play.

The developers have made some choices that affect the emission data shown in the map. CO2 intensity from different types of plants / power plants is based on calculated emissions throughout the life cycle of the plant (construction phase, production of fuel, power generation itself, dismantling). For most countries, the average is derived from the UN climate panel. There is little use of data for each power plant. Thus, the map does not divide, for example. between new and old coal power plants, which will have different CO2 intensities. For Norwegian hydropower data from studies made by Østfoldforskning has been used.

For the European countries, most of the real-time data from Entso-E, the organization of the national companies with system responsibility in the power grid, is retrieved. Statnett is a Norwegian member.

EU: Power production becomes less CO2-intensive

The map gives a snapshot of power generation, cross-border exchange and CO2 intensity. But of course it is the overall development over time as a counter. The figure below shows the evolution of CO2 intensity in in power generation in the EU since 1990.