Italy
ITAItaly has cleaned up its grid faster than most people realise.
Low-carbon electricity went from 16% to 49% in 20 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 7 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.
Italy buys in more electricity than it sends out.
What this means
The share of the electricity used here that was generated abroad and carried in over high-voltage lines. The higher it climbs, the more this country relies on a neighbour to keep its lights on.
More of its fuel is bought in than produced at home.
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 Italy
Italy is among the world's biggest wind and solar producers and still burns fossil fuels for most of its power.
25% of its electricity is wind and solar; 51% is still fossil. Both are true at once, and that tension is the whole story of the transition.
Solar overtook hydro on Italy's grid in 2025.
Today solar supplies 17% and hydro 16%.
Italy is first in NATO for gas.
Gas supplies 47% of its electricity.
Italy’s neighbours
FranceFrance is first in the world for nuclear.
AustriaAustria has cleaned up its grid faster than most people realise.
SwitzerlandSwitzerland gets next to none of its electricity from gas, in a region built on it.
SloveniaHydro overtook coal on Slovenia's grid in 2018.
CroatiaWind overtook gas on Croatia's grid in 2025.
Figures are for 2025, the most recent year reported for Italy. Generation shares are a percentage of electricity generated, not of energy used. How this is calculated.