The top 10 countries for wind and solar energy

According to the most recent data available, from December 2023, here are the 10 countries that use the highest percentage of homegrown wind and solar energy in their electricity mix. 

^{(Data courtesy of Ember)} 

We excluded countries with populations less than 15,000 (including the Cook and Falkland Islands) and countries — Lithuania  and Luxembourg — that have high levels of renewables but import most of it from neighbors. 

How did Denmark and other European countries become world leaders in renewable energy?

Denmark, currently ranked #1, used to get 90% of its energy from oil, but the oil crisis of the early 1970s, and local ingenuity — Danish inventors constructed some of the world's first modern wind turbines —  prompted the government to take advantage of the country’s considerable wind resources. 

By the 1990s, growing voter and government concern across Europe prompted the European Union and its member states to create renewable energy and climate pollution targets that wind and solar power help meet. Air pollution laws accelerated the phase-out of coal plants. Europe also has a cap-and-trade system that charges industrial polluters a fee for every ton of carbon they release, and invests the fees in clean energy. 

“With the European Green Deal” — that’s the continent’s plan to become carbon-neutral by 2050 — “the EU has made climate its flagship agenda,” says Environmental Defense Fund’s Lea Pilsner, an advocate for clean energy in Europe.  

When Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine created an energy crisis across the continent, European officials doubled down with a plan to reduce climate pollution in the region by 55% by 2030. 

“The European Commission was saying, ‘For our energy security, pushing renewables really is the way to go,’” says Pilsner. 

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Uruguay’s climate leadership

In #7 Uruguay, wind and solar took off thanks to the visionary leadership of president José Mujica. A former guerilla who took office in 2010, Mujica believed that the true revolution was “learning to live with less waste and more time to enjoy freedom.” 

The looming electricity shortages that began threatening  the country’s economy in the 2000s prompted Mujica and the national legislature to look to the abundant breezes that cool the country’s Atlantic coastline. Uruguay initiated a creative public/private partnership to install hundreds of wind turbines, increasing wind power from 1 percent in 2010 to 34 percent by 2018. The strategy cut electricity production costs nearly in half, created 50,000 new jobs and endowed Uruguayans with cleaner air and a more secure energy future. 

How much wind and solar power does the U.S. produce? 

Where does the U.S. stand? At the end of 2023, the world’s second-largest climate polluter was number 28 in the clean energy rankings, with 15.6% of its electricity generated by wind and solar power.  

But ambitions run high. The Biden administration aims to get 100% of U.S. electricity from carbon-free sources by 2035 and historic investments from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act are supercharging clean energy progress. So are new federal rules that make it easier to connect clean energy to the country’s electric grids. The prices of wind and solar power have dropped so much in recent years that large solar and wind farms are often the country’s least expensive forms of electricity.   

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By mid-2024, wind and solar accounted for 18.6% of all U.S. electricity, and analysts anticipate that even more clean power will come online by the end of the year. 

“If we keep our foot on the pedal, we can build a clean energy future that dramatically improves many fundamental aspects of our lives,” says Derek Walker, Environmental Defense Fund’s vice president for global energy transition. 

China and India stood at 29^th and 39^th, respectively, at the end of 2023. But both nations are making progress. China recently met its ambitious clean energy goals for 2030 six years early. And in the first half of 2024, the country was home to more than half of all the solar power installed worldwide. 

India built out more solar and wind power in the first five months of 2024 than in all of 2023, despite technical and financial challenges. “There is a consensus that renewables make sense for India from an economic, strategic and environmental perspective,” says Hisham Mundol, EDF’s chief advisor in India. 

“With clean energy, there’s no question: a revolution is underway,” says Walker. “This remarkable progress is benefitting our health, our wallets and our futures.”