Spark Charts
Insights into energy's future
The energy transition is unfolding rapidly around the world, as cleaner and lower-cost energy and technologies displace dirtier, more expensive incumbents. Learn more about the breadth of this historic transformation via the charts, graphs, and data visualizations collected here.
Spark Chart , Strategic Insights | July 31, 2025
Three Priorities for a New Age of Electricity Load Growth
We are in a new age of electricity demand. As the recent International Energy Agency (IEA) report reminds us, electricity demand is seeing some of its highest growth rates in the past decade. Headlines keep coming on how data centers are to blame. While this may be true in some local cases, most of the […]
Industry , Spark Chart , Strategic Insights | April 28, 2025
Trillion-dollar Win: Clean Energy Investment Benefits Growth and Jobs in All States
As federal clean energy incentives are targeted, red states face bigger losses.
Strategic Insights | April 14, 2025
How to Save Money for All Americans: Efficiency
Energy efficiency gains made since 2000 save the average American over $1,000 per year.
Strategic Insights | March 26, 2025
Clean Energy Crosses the Political Aisle
Nationwide, solar and wind show more unity than division.
Spark Chart | July 29, 2024
The Energy Transition in Three Xs
As new clean technologies grow up S-curves, the incumbent technologies get pushed out in inverse S-curves.This creates an X pattern that is standard in technology history; we saw this for example in the shift from cast iron to steel and from horses to cars.
Spark Chart | July 29, 2024
In the Shift to Clean Energy, New Technologies Beat Old Commodities
Commodities, like coal or oil, are lumps of matter we dig out of the ground. Technologies, like solar or batteries, are things we make in factories. Technologies are the meeting of matter and knowledge. Adding human ingenuity into the mix is enough to alter the economics profoundly.
Spark Chart | July 29, 2024
The Great Capital Reallocation
Contrary to popular belief, the buildout of renewable energy supply does not require a surge in capital expenditure (capex). As cleantech capex rises, fossil fuel capex falls. And the net growth in capex is only 2 percent a year, in line with the past seven years, and much lower than in the decade after 2000.
Spark Chart | July 29, 2024
Why Electricity Is the New King of Energy
Until the Industrial Revolution, biomass ruled the energy kingdom. Then came coal, reigning over the top spot until the mid-20th century. Petroleum succeeded coal, but not for long. At the turn of the 21st century, electricity took over as the largest supplier of useful energy. In 2019, electricity supplied 30 percent of useful energy according to IIASA, whilst oil supplied only 24 percent.