About the power plant atlas.
The geography behind the grid.
An independent atlas for understanding where the world’s electricity comes from. Explore power stations, country profiles and electricity statistics across continents.
Real data, with visible limits
The atlas contains 51,483 source records. Its global foundation is the WRI Global Power Plant Database v1.3.0, which has not been maintained since early 2022. Official national inventories now replace that baseline in the sectors they cover. Individually sourced operator specifications add records for some smaller systems.
Read the data sources and country coverage page for publication dates, inclusion thresholds, missing fields and licenses. Swiss records include registered installations, UK records describe projects, and other sources may describe entire plant complexes. Counts therefore do not represent comparable numbers of unique power stations.
We choose a primary source per covered sector instead of adding overlapping inventories together. Missing values stay missing. Owner and operator are separate fields. Coordinates can be approximate; a marker does not imply live availability. Newer projects, small systems and closed facilities may be missing or out of date.
Download combined provenance, source coverage or atlas records. Reuse terms differ by source; see full attribution.
What the fuel filters mean
Renewables group hydro, wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, wave and tidal. Non-renewables group coal, gas, oil, petroleum coke and nuclear. Nuclear is non-renewable but is not a fossil fuel. Waste and other ambiguous categories remain in “Other / mixed”. These are primary-fuel categories, not lifecycle emissions ratings. Hydro includes records that may use pumped storage.
Maps and geography
Interactive cartography uses OpenFreeMap, OpenMapTiles and OpenStreetMap contributors. The adapted Liberty style retains roads, settlement labels and building footprints while excluding POI symbols. Country outlines and the overview illustration use Natural Earth’s public-domain 1:50m boundaries. Those simplified outlines are for orientation, not surveying or a statement on territorial status.
Country facts use the Countries geographic database under ODbL 1.0, with European Union reference profiles for EU members. The adapted geographic database is available under the same license. Natural Earth supplies country outlines; small territories may have no outline at this scale. Country selection focuses on the main geographic component; full boundaries remain available.
Electricity statistics and comparisons
Charts use Ember’s Yearly Electricity Data (2026), processed by Our World in Data, from the 24 April 2026 catalog snapshot. Both are credited under CC BY 4.0. We retain country and territory observations plus the World aggregate for 2000–2025, rename fields and round values to three decimal places. Missing observations remain missing. Read the full processing and source metadata or explore the charts.
Country comparisons use a single year, exclude regional aggregates, and require a positive generation total. The default year, 2024, is the latest with at least 90% of the snapshot’s maximum country coverage. Shares describe domestic electricity generation, not all energy consumption. Low-carbon includes nuclear; renewable does not. National totals are independent of the historical station inventory.
Your own starting point
The map opens to the world. Choose a country, follow a shared link, or press “Use my location” to ask your browser for permission. Coordinates are matched to country outlines locally and are not stored by this application. No country is selected automatically from your IP address. A manual selector remains available if location access is declined or the geographic match is uncertain.
An atlas first. A simulation later.
The longer-term idea is a browser game in which you manage an electrical grid. This release establishes the geographic atlas only. It does not model dispatch, transmission lines, demand, electrical connectivity or power flows. Geographic proximity does not imply that two stations are electrically connected.
Reuse and corrections
Each station exposes its source ID and the original provider link when available. Use those references to investigate discrepancies. See the full data and style attribution for licensing and transformation details.