Global electricity production up 3.6%

16 August 2022


The latest International Energy Agency’s Monthly Electricity Statistics report, from data up to and including May 2022, shows that for the total of OECD states, net electricity production was 864.1 TWh in May 2022, corresponding to a 3.6% increase over May 2021. Out of this production, 48.3% (417.4 TWh) originated from fossil fuels, 36.2% (312.8 TWh) from renewable sources and 15.2% (131.6 TWh) from nuclear power.

Electricity production from nuclear power decreased by 8.6% y-o-y, as many countries had nuclear plants undergoing maintenance in May 2022. Production from fossil fuels (+7.2% y-o-y) and renewables (+5.4% y-o-y) increased to make up for the decrease in nuclear.

The rise in production from fossil sources was driven by an increase of electricity production from natural gas (11.0% y-o-y), corresponding to 28.7% of total net electricity production.

Solar (+21.5% y-o-y) and wind (+9.3% y-o-y) power drove the increase from renewable sources. While solar power has grown in all OECD regions, electricity from wind dropped by 5.4% (y-o-y) in OECD Europe as low wind speeds affected several countries.

In Japan , electricity production from solar power was notably higher, 9.9 TWh in May 2022, up by 26.3% or 2.1 TWh compared to the same month last year, driving the overall increase observed in the region. This set a new record high of 13.9% solar power share in the country’s electricity mix. Conversely, nuclear electricity generation continued to decrease for the fourth month in a row, settling at 2.7 TWh (-45.6% y-o-y), as a few reactors are still undergoing maintenance operations. 


The IEA's Monthly Electricity Statistics features electricity production and trade data for all OECD Member countries and electricity production data for a selection of other economies.



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