Talk:List of countries by electricity consumption

The European Union
Despite what some (mainly Europeans) think, the EU is not a country, if we include the EU here, then lets include the UN, NATO, etc (Hypernick1980 03:58, 13 April 2006 (UTC))
 * This has been debated into oblivion already in other places. The EU is not like any other organization with regard to supranational power, it should be included in lists like these for comparison purposes but not ranked. --Bjarki 13:01, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps usage by continent could be included, but not ranked --User: stargate70 Continents and NATO, have no responsibility for energy consumption, unlike countries, unlike EU. --Sqgl (talk) 09:57, 9 November 2009 (UTC)sqgl

Per capita
Unfortunately energy consumption is given in the table as a number of watts. This actually means that what's shown on the table is a RATE of energy consumption averaged over a year! VERY confusing to the average reader and quite confusing to many people such as me who have some technical background. People are accustomed to energy usage being stated in kilowatt-hours. This makes much more sense since it states energy, not power (rate of energy use). Energy consumption figures are IMPORTANT. PLEASE make this table more intelligible by changing the units from power to energy units! By the way, to convert the power numbers in the table back to energy, simply multiply by the hours in a year which = 365.25X24. Note that this accurately states that there are 365.25 days in a year. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Davidr222 (talk • contribs) 02:26, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

A list describing consumption per capita would be much more relevant. Joffeloff 22:42, 10 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Ooh, this has been done. Now the gluttony of my home country is clear to the world. Thankee. :) Joffeloff 14:42, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes but wouldn't a separate article be interesting anyway, so you can see who's on top and all? Evilbu 18:56, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I believe the table heading for "consumption" is incorrect. The numbers in that column appear to be in units of megawatt-hours, not the stated gigawatt-hours. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.106.59.246 (talk) 21:10, 6 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Are you sure you are not confusing MW and GW-h/year ? 1 MW = 8.766 GW-h/y (number of hours in a year divided by 1000)? Xenonice (talk) 20:28, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

I think a review of the figures is in order as there may be errors. For example, simply divide the total consumption for the U.S. listed by the population listed and you don't come up with the per capita usage that's listed - not even close! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.91.162.239 (talk) 13:57, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

A formula is now given but the column heading is poor. "Average...per capita" is tautology. Unless we mean average per hour, in which case let's rename it "Hourly consumption per capita".Sqgl (talk) 10:02, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Isn't the current power per capita a bit misleading? Does it take industry in account? Countries with a lot of heavy industries use more power than countries that don't have this. (Vanderhavecn (talk) 02:42, 8 November 2011 (UTC))


 * The purpose of listing power per capita is to normalize the figures for population, not to represent the resources used directly by a typical individual, so I think this is acceptable. If someone has a good way to normalize for industrialization though, that might also be interesting (not as a replacement for the straight per capita figures though). Evzob (talk) 10:29, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

The change to using kWh for everything has made this page somewhat confusing because it does not define over how long of a period anywhere. It's implied that it's per-year, but that is not explicit. If a unit of energy like kWh is go be used for consumption in the table headers, a denominator unit should be added eg: "kWh/year". Pxtl (talk) 15:28, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

People's Republic of China
Why is the official name of China used here, instead of the common name "China". Because otherwise we shoud use the official names for all other countries, like "Kingdom of Spain" instead of Spain etc.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zaza1851983 (talk • contribs) 17:42, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Because there are currently two states that have "China" in its name. The Republic of China, which lost the mainland to the communists in 1949 and the People's Republic of China which are the communists. But of course you knew that "Sinebot'".

Akaloc (talk) 14:00, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

New Discussion
A discussion has been started at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries/Lists of countries which could affect the inclusion criteria and title of this and other lists of countries. Editors are invited to participate. Pfainuk talk 11:34, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

New Data
New data is available for 2008 for major countries in BP's statistical report.http://www.bp.com/productlanding.do?categoryId=6929&contentId=7044622, under historical data. Please update the table. Calvingao (talk) 03:24, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Can't compare with data from different years
Why are figures from different years used for different countries? This makes it impossible to properly compare the countries, which is the whole point of a list like this, right? I understand that very recent data might not be available for some countries, but there seems to at least be data from 2005 for every country, correct? If so, the list should consistently use the 2005 data. Evzob (talk) 08:35, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

So outdated!
This is so retarded and so outdated, Egypt's consumption to electricity is 127 Billion kWh in 2011, This year 2012 peak demand reached 27000 MW! This page embarrassed me in front of my family, this page is shame on Wikipedia! Also comparing different years is so awfully wrong! We need a new page, which shows average power rate in kW, in addition to annual consumption kWh! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.135.88.181 (talk) 04:43, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Figure for China May be Wrong
I think that the total for China is off by a factor of 1,000. If you multiply the average power use by the population and hours per year, you get an answer that is more in line with the other large consumers, and 1/1000 of the stated total. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ldness (talk • contribs) 21:08, 4 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Fixed. Someone made the same error for the United States and total World figures as well.--Quodfui (talk) 16:16, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Population of Georgia is wrong
Georgia's population is about 4.5 million not about 43 million; fixed that (and the energy production, using CIA World Factbook figures) but now it's out of order in the table Fivemack (talk) 10:35, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Also include a kWh per capita per annum column?
The average reader might be better able to relate to kWh per capita per annum than watts/person. That is what the World Bank uses http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.USE.ELEC.KH.PC, so it would be easy to check for consistency with their table. I realize it is redundant to have time in the numerator and denominator, but most people think of electricity in terms of the kWh they see on their bill.Tetsuo (talk) 23:59, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Sorting by rank lists rows improperly
When sorting by rank, when the ranks should be sorted like "1,2,3,4,5,6", they're actually sorted like "1,10,100,101,102".

81.16.160.45 (talk) 11:37, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
 * This seems to have been fixed. -- Beland (talk) 06:15, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Per capita electricity consumption break up
The electricity generation is divided in to utilities generation and non utility generation. Non utility generation is further divided in to captive power generation, co-generation, emergency power generation from DG sets during power outages, off grid power generation, etc. Please clarify that electricity from all these generations is included in per capita electricity consumption. Whether the auxiliary power consumption of a power station is also part of the computation and also transmission & distribution losses. Whether it is appropriate to call it 'per capita electricity generation' instead of 'Per capita electricity consumption'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.207.221.221 (talk) 15:33, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Inconsistent measurement units for some lines in the same table
Apparently the consumption figure is offset by a factor of 1 million for the top 16 entries (world plus the first 15 countries). Should we remove 000,000 from each number to bring them in line with other lines that express consumption in GWh per annum, rather than kWh per annum? GáborVG (talk) 07:05, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
 * OK, I did that. Gah4 (talk) 11:40, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Wrong population sizes
The populations sizes are very wrong, still. For example, Nigeria has "2,100,963,600" inhabitants, (210m correct) Congo "1,975,790,570" (92m correct !?), Egypt "512,388,070" (100m correct!?). 94.254.92.157 (talk) 22:46, 28 November 2022 (UTC)


 * Ukrainian population data is wrong too. AFAIK it is about 40 million person, while the tabel "says" only 14 million. 94.21.47.211 (talk) 19:11, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Does the (·) in (GW·h/yr) have any meaning ?
is it just for separation or is it something else like (x) ? 196.176.60.104 (talk) 20:36, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, it is a multiplication symbol, something like (x). Sometimes when you combine units, it is hard to see that they are combined. Gah4 (talk) 01:04, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
 * and the (/) is meant to mean per year not an actual division sign ? 196.176.60.104 (talk) 23:03, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
 * It means per because it is an actual division sign. Maybe not in Wikipedia, but you also find -1 superscript, or to the -1 power, which is another way to write division. Gah4 (talk) 06:43, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
 * thanks for the explanation 196.178.91.240 (talk) 15:24, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
 * It means per because it is an actual division sign. Maybe not in Wikipedia, but you also find -1 superscript, or to the -1 power, which is another way to write division. Gah4 (talk) 06:43, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
 * thanks for the explanation 196.178.91.240 (talk) 15:24, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
 * thanks for the explanation 196.178.91.240 (talk) 15:24, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Calculation errors
I happened to stumble upon some inconsistencies here. From my understanding, all data, as total consumption in GWh/y, is sourced from EIA (except for the case of Liechtenstein which is supposedly sourced from the CIA???) while the per capita columns are merely calculated by the given formulas. However, these formulas don't explain all values! I tested this with china and it's correct except for the rounding error in the per capita Watts column:

China 7,806,000 GWh/y 1,425,893,504 5,474 kWh 624 W -> 7806000*10^6/1425893504=5474 kWh/y; 7806000*10^6*0.114077116/1425893504=625 W

Like China, most columns seem roughly correct but there are outliers such as Benin and Saint Pierre and Miquelon with the latter being off orders of magnitudes.

Benin 500 GWh/y 12,996,901 101 kWh 12 W -> 500*10^6/12996901=38 kWh/y; 500*10^6*0.114077116/12996901=4.3 W Saint Pierre and Miquelon 44.64 GWh/y 850,890 7,479 kWh 853 W -> 44.64*10^6/850890=52 kWh/y; 44.64*10^6*0.114077116/850890=6 W

Other countries which seem odd are: US, Nigeria, Sudan, Luxembourg, Afghanistan, Uganda, Burkina Faso, Niger, Malawi, Burundi, Somalia, Eritrea, Gambia, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Guinea-Bissau, Cook Islands, Falkland Islands, Montserrat, Niue, Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha

I noticed because I needed a table of average country wattage and just to be sure, I calculated it from total as well as from per-capita Krumonset (talk) 10:09, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Site vs Source Energy
Can we have a clarification somewhere as to whether we are talking about site energy (end use) or source energy (primary energy)? I don't see these terms anywhere in this article. Greenhistoria (talk) 01:34, 9 March 2024 (UTC)