Electricity Consumption Per Person Around The World

Map created by reddit user IKissWhiteMensAssesThe map above shows which countries consume the most electricity per person. The numbers include electricity used by both households and businesses. See below for a full ranking.

The top 10 countries in terms of electricity consumption per capita are:

1. Iceland: 5,777 watts
2. Liechtenstein: 4,092 watts
3. Norway: 2,740 watts
4. Kuwait: 2,176 watts
5. Bahrain: 2,069 watts
6. United Arab Emirates: 1,848 watts
7. Qatar: 1,718 watts
8. Canada: 1,704 watts
9. Finland: 1,681 watts
10. Sweden: 1,467 watts

The 10 countries with the lowest consumption per person were:

1. Gaza Strip: 0.01 watts
2. Chad: 1 watt
3. Guinea-Bissau: 2 watts
4. Somalia: 3 watts
5. Sierra Leone: 3 watts
6. Rwanda: 4 watts
7. Burundi: 4 watts
8. Haiti: 4 watts
9. Central African Republic: 4 watts
10. Eritrea: 5 watts

The data comes from Wikipedia with most figures coming from 2016 (you see the full list there).

Average power per capita was calculated according to the formula:

Electric energy per capita [ in watt-hour ] = Total population electricity consumption [ in kW·h/yr ] * 1,000 /population.

Electric power per capita [ in watt ] = Total population electricity consumption [ in kW·h/yr ] * 0.114077116 /population.

1 kW·h/yr = 1,000 Wh/(365.25 x 24)h = 0.11408 Watt

Overall, China is the world’s largest consumer of electricity, but given it’s vast population, the figure per capita is only 510 watts. The US is the second largest consumer in aggregate, but the per person figure is much higher at 1,377 watts.

Finally, the UK is the world’s 11th largest consumer of electricity in total, with a per capita consumption only slightly above China’s at 547 watts.