What's new

A Profile for Every Country

Two hundred countries now have a page of their own, and each one opens on a different kind of claim rather than the same sentence with the numbers swapped. Bhutan leads on running entirely off one river system, Germany on the year wind passed coal, Tanzania on having France's population and a fortieth of its electricity.

• The lead fact is picked from seven families, so no two pages read alike
• Every figure printed in one is checked against the data that produced it
• Fourteen grids too small to say anything true about deliberately have no page

A Homepage About Your Own Grid

The front page now opens with a fact about the country you are reading from, rather than a world map with no obvious first move. The map moved to /explore, where it still is.

• Switch to any other country from the header, and it is remembered
• Location is read from the connection and never stored
• No country detected, or one we cannot cover, shows the world instead

What a Grid Depends On

Country pages now carry carbon intensity, electricity trade and energy independence - three measures that say more about a country than how much power it makes. Each explains itself in plain English, because none of those terms mean anything on their own.

• Carbon intensity is ranked, so a number becomes "cleaner than 7 in 10 grids"
• Trade is stated from whichever side a country is on: Luxembourg buys in 77%, Paraguay sells 35%
• Independence is never coloured good or bad - mining your own coal scores well

Charts You Can Read a Year Off

The forty-year mix charts told you wind grew and nothing else. Hovering one now marks the year and gives every fuel's share at it, and the keyboard walks the years for anyone not using a mouse.

• The figure beside each hook is now the one the hook is about, set in green
• Arrow keys move through the years, Home and End jump to either end

Geothermal Separated From Bioenergy

The two were reported as one source, which was harmless while it was an unlabelled band on a chart and wrong the moment a page described it in words. Kenya read as 48% bioenergy when it is overwhelmingly geothermal; so did Iceland, New Zealand and the Philippines.

• No published figure moved - the chart band is the sum of the two
• Emissions relabelled CO2e: the source counts methane and the full lifecycle, not just carbon dioxide
• Every country gained a region, so the smallest grids can be compared with their neighbours

Automatic Data Refresh

Energy data now refreshes from Our World in Data on a weekly schedule instead of by hand, so country figures stop drifting months behind the source.

• Fossil fuel import data is now generated rather than hand-maintained
• Refreshes are validated before publishing - a bad upstream release is rejected
• Quiz insights that the new data contradicts are flagged for rewriting, not published

Correlation Figures Corrected

The correlation strength (r-squared) shown on the Energy & Prosperity page was being calculated with a straight-line model while the charts were drawn on logarithmic axes. The two now match, and the relationship is considerably stronger than previously published.

• Electricity vs GDP: 0.35 to 0.65
• Electricity vs Human Development Index: 0.35 to 0.69
• Electricity vs life expectancy: 0.26 to 0.53
• Electricity vs manufacturing: 0.17 to 0.60

Map Coverage Fixed

The world map could only colour 99 countries while the dataset held 214. Countries including Ghana, Bahrain and DR Congo had full generation records but rendered as blank grey and could not be clicked.

• 173 countries now shaded and interactive, up from 99
• 99.7% of world generation now represented on the map, up from 97.6%
• Per-capita electricity figures corrected - they were 1,000x too high

Higher or Lower

A guessing game at /play. Two countries, one energy metric, pick which is higher and build a streak. Every round ends with the story behind the number.

• Questions are hand-curated, not randomly generated
• Both countries are always compared in the same year
• A wrong answer resets the streak but never ends the run
• Best streak is remembered between visits

Simpler Navigation

The top navigation is now Explore, Play, Compare and Rankings. Correlations, Story and Why moved to the footer - all three pages are unchanged and still live at the same addresses.

Rankings Page Enhancements

Click any country row in the rankings table to expand detailed information inline, without navigating away.

• Visual energy mix breakdown with color-coded bars
• Key statistics including demand, emissions, and independence
• Quick link to compare with other countries
• Bloc membership at a glance

Independence Score v3: Electricity Imports

Independence score now accounts for electricity imports via interconnectors, not just fuel imports.

• Score calculated against demand, not generation
• Net electricity importers (demand > generation) penalized
• Countries like Luxembourg now show true import dependency
• Asterisk (*) indicates missing fossil fuel data

Shareable Compare URLs

Compare page state is now saved to the URL. Share specific country comparisons with others by copying the link.

Correlation Dashboard

New interactive scatter plots exploring the relationship between energy consumption and prosperity indicators.

• GDP per capita vs electricity consumption
• Human Development Index correlations
• Life expectancy relationships
• Manufacturing output analysis

Map Color Modes

Switch between three different map visualizations to explore different aspects of global electricity.

• Production view - total generation by country
• Independence view - energy independence scores
• Clean energy view - renewable + nuclear percentage

Why Energy Matters

Comprehensive educational page explaining the connection between energy abundance and economic prosperity.

Energy Story Timeline

Visual narrative exploring how global electricity generation has evolved from 1998 to 2025, highlighting key transitions and country stories.

Energy Independence Score v2

Major methodology update incorporating fossil fuel import dependency and uranium production data.

• Fossil fuel production/consumption ratios from Our World in Data
• Uranium mining data from World Nuclear Association
• Countries scored on actual domestic fuel production
• France now scored at ~20% due to 100% uranium imports

Rankings Page

Sortable table showing all 88 countries ranked by various metrics including generation, independence score, clean energy percentage, and more.

Country Comparison

Side-by-side comparison of up to 4 countries with split bars showing energy mix breakdown.

• Compare any countries directly
• Bloc comparison aggregates
• Country flags for quick identification

Energy Independence Score MVP

First version of the independence scoring system, measuring how much electricity comes from domestic vs imported sources.

Dark Mode

Full dark theme support across all pages. Toggle in the header to switch between light and dark modes.

Map Zoom & Pan

Interactive map controls allowing zoom and pan for detailed regional exploration.

Initial Launch

Grid Gorilla launches with core features for exploring global electricity data.

• Interactive world map with choropleth visualization
• 88 countries with yearly data from 1998-2025
• Bloc filtering (EU, NATO, BRICS, G7, G20, etc.)
• Year slider for historical exploration
• Country detail panels with energy mix breakdown