Combustile renewables and waste (% of total)

Short description

Combustible renewables and waste, measured as a percentage of total energy use, include: solid biomass, liquid biomass, biogas, industrial waste and municipal waste.

Meta data

Original data

Data:

Combustible renewables and waste.csv

Unit for original data:

% of total

Date of extraction:

Saturday, January 6, 2018

Data source link:

The World Bank

Rationale

Combustible renewables and waste includes all waste-fed energy consumption. In addition to renewable energy share of electricity production, this could also serve as an indicator of the prevalence and adoption of renewable energy technologies. Contrary to general perception for developing countries, where the share of combustible renewables and waste is correlated with deficiency in energy provision, in Europe, it’s an indication of a shift towards more sustainable energy sources and people’s willingness to invest in sustainable energy technologies (biogas plants are very popular on a small scale in dairy and other types of farms).

Limitations

The data is not technology specific: there is no indication of how much is biogas or solid biofuel. And as a result, looking at this data in tandem with renewable share of electricity excluding hydro, would potentially provide a better understanding of the renewable energy landscape. The data originates from the IEA, which highlights limitations due to political changes with respect to statistics for former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, in addition to constant changes in coverage and methodologies of data collection, making breaks in data inevitable.

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The indicator is relevant to the following innovation systems on this website

Climate adaptation

Where climate change mitigation fails, adaptation becomes the unavoidable response.

Renewable energy

The transition of the energy system towards renewable sources is important for climate change mitigation.