Wednesday, July 06, 2022

The Energy Industry Map

The European Commission's interactive map The Energy and Industry Geography Lab provides an overview of Europe's energy infrastructure and the potential for developing cleaner energy.

The inital map view of The Energy and Industry Geography Map shows the location of the various types of power plants and their individual capacity. This layer provides a wonderful overview of how individual countries generate electricity. For example, the number of red dots (indicating coal fired power stations) in Germany and much of Eastern Europe shows that the continent still has a long way to go in eradicating greenhouse gas emissions.

The number of large green dots in France shows its reliance on nuclear energy (in 2021 69% of France's electricity production was generated by nuclear power). Norway is dominated by hydro-electric power plants (hydropower plants generate around 90 % of Norway's electricity). A large number of hydro plants are also located in north Italy, in the Italian Alps.

The Energy and Industry Geography Map includes a number of other map layers. These include a layer displaying energy infrastructure networks - showing the location of the continent's gas pipelines. The map also includes layers which show the locations of planned future energy projects in Europe and assessments of the continent's renewable energy potential. 


You can explore how America generates power on the U.S. Power Plants map. U.S. Power Plants is an interactive map showing the locations, size and type of America's electric power plants. The map shows where different types of power plant are located, how much each type of energy source contributes to the country's power supply and how much each source contributes to CO2 emissions. 

The number of map filters on U.S. Power Plants means that the map can provide lots of different insights into American power supply. For example the individual fuel filters allow you to see where different power sources are concentrated in America. Select hydro power and you can see that hydro power plants are concentrated in the north-west and north-east of the country. While solar power plants are mainly located in California. 



Esri's Atlas of Electricity is another great way to explore where the USA gets its electricity from and how it distributes power across the country. At the heart of an Atlas of Electricity is an interactive map plotting the location and size of the grid's power plants and transmission cables. This map allows you to explore the location and capacity of the country's electricity producing power plants and how they connect to the national grid. 

As well as mapping the physical infrastructure of the electricity grid Esri's story map examines the primary energy sources used to generate electricity in the USA. It maps the size and capacity of coal-fired power plants, natural gas power plants and petroleum power plants. Alongside these fossil-fuel sources of power An Atlas of Electricity plots the size and capacity of the U.S.'s nuclear power plants, hydroelectric power plants and solar & wind power plants.

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