The latest International Energy Agency ‘Monthly Electricity Statistics’ report, which includes November 2023 data, shows that the total net electricity production by OECD members was 862.0 TWh in November 2023, up by 1.6% compared to November 2022.
Electricity production from fossil fuel sources continued to decline (-2.8% year-on-year), largely owing to reduced production from coal fired power plants (-8.8% y-o-y). Specifically, the reduction in production from the United States (-8.7% y-o-y), Germany (-26.7% y-o-y), Poland (-18.7% y-o-y), Japan (-7.7% y-o-y) and the Republic of Türkiye (-10.7%) drove the overall trend of this decrease in coal-fired electricity generation.
Conversely, net electricity production from renewable energy remained higher than the same period last year (+6.0% y-o-y), a trend that has been consistent since July 2023, driven by higher production from wind (+5.1% y-o-y) and solar power (+10.9%). In OECD Europe, hydro power was also a large contributor to the increase of renewables in the electricity mix (+32.9%), as the region experienced a wetter late summer and fall than in 2022.
Electricity production from nuclear power increased by 6.0% y-o-y, as production in France rebounded from the low levels of 2022 (+27.7% y-o-y) but remained shy of 2021 levels. In OECD Asia Oceania, Japan and Korea also showed a large increase in generation from nuclear power plants compared to 2022 (+45.1% and 12.2% y-o-y, respectively).
The standout figures come from Korea, where electricity production from renewables was strong in November 2023, reaching 4.5 TWh and increasing by 21.9% or 0.8 TWh over the same month last year. All renewable technologies contributed to this positive y-o-y variation, led by wind (+82.9% y-o-y), combustible renewables (+31.5% y-o-y), solar (+13.1% y-o-y) and to a lesser extent by hydropower (+7.5% y-o-y). Overall, renewables provided 9.4% of the country total net electricity production.
Image: Electricity production by fuel type year-to-date comparison (Source: IEA)
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