United Arab Emirates
AREThe United Arab Emirates has cleaned up its grid faster than most people realise.
Low-carbon electricity went from 3% to 32% in 5 years.
What this grid depends on
Three measures that say more about a country than how much power it makes. Open “what this means” on any of them if the term is new.
Cleaner than 5 in 10 grids worldwide.
What this means
How much planet-warming gas is released to make one unit of electricity. Two countries can generate exactly the same amount and one of them be ten times dirtier doing it. Lower is better.
United Arab Emirates generates almost exactly what it uses, with next to nothing crossing its borders.
What this means
Electricity can be sold across a border like anything else, through high-voltage lines connecting one country's grid to the next. Buying it in means leaning on a neighbour to keep the lights on. Selling it means generating more than the country needs.
A mix of fuel produced at home and fuel bought in.
What this means
How much of what this grid runs on the country can supply itself. Sun, wind and water count fully, because nobody can cut them off; coal, gas and oil only as far as the country digs them up. A high score is not the same as a good grid: mining your own coal scores well, importing uranium scores badly.
Also true of United Arab Emirates
The United Arab Emirates is third in Asia for nuclear.
Nuclear supplies 23% of its electricity.
The United Arab Emirates generates no hydro electricity at all, in a region built on it.
41% of grids in Asia draw more than a tenth of their power from hydro.
the United Arab Emirates' electricity is about as carbon-heavy as the world's.
468 grams of CO2e a kilowatt-hour, against a world figure of 458.
United Arab Emirates’s neighbours
Saudi ArabiaGas overtook oil on Saudi Arabia's grid in 2016.
OmanOman runs almost entirely on gas.
QatarQatar uses far more electricity per person than countries at its income level.
BahrainBahrain is second in the world for gas.
KuwaitKuwait uses far more electricity per person than countries at its income level.
Figures are for 2024, the most recent year reported for United Arab Emirates. Generation shares are a percentage of electricity generated, not of energy used. How this is calculated.