Did you ever wonder how the electricity you're using has been produced? While most European governments are pushing customers to shift from fossil fuels to electricity for heating or personal mobility, how much is it reducing the country's carbon footprint?
The answer is different for each country and it will depend on its electricity production mix: on average, 63,5% of the world's electricity is still produced by burning fossil fuels like gas, coal and oil!
In Europe, for example, the range is pretty wide between Iceland, producing 100% of its electricity from renewable energies like geothermy and hydropower to Poland, using mostly coal.
How about Switzerland? Its production is renewable at 75%, mainly thanks to a strong hydropower source accounting for 66% of global production. However, the remaining 25% are coming from nuclar plants that should be shut down by 2030. This means that renewable powersources like solar, biomass, geothermy and wind will have to grow much faster in the next decade.
On average, electricity produced in Switzerland has a pretty low carbon intensity of 33g per kWh, but as the country is importing foreign electricity in winter, the carbon intensity of the consumption is higher at 130g per kWh.
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