Global Carbon Intensity Map Screensaver
The Global Carbon Intensity Map screensaver ranks real live electricity carbon intensity by country and region. It is free, runs in your browser, and ESC exits.
Live preview
Press ESC to leave fullscreen. Settings are saved in your browser only.
How the Global Carbon Intensity Map screensaver works
The saver reads real live carbon-intensity readings per zone from the Electricity Maps API.
Zones are ranked by their real reported grams of CO2 per kilowatt-hour.
The pipeline refreshes the board on its own schedule.
A free Electricity Maps API token is required.
What carbon intensity actually measures
Carbon intensity describes how much carbon dioxide is released for each unit of electricity, usually in grams of CO2-equivalent per kilowatt-hour. It is a property of a region's electricity mix at a given moment. A grid supplied mostly by hydro, nuclear, wind or solar sits at the low end, while one leaning on coal or gas sits much higher. Intensity is not a measure of how much power a country uses, only how clean the supply is.
Electricity Maps, the company behind the data, uses a consumption-based approach: it traces power flows between interconnected grids with a flow-tracing algorithm, so the figure reflects the electricity available to consumers rather than only what is generated locally. The traced mix is matched with emission factors for each technology, by default the IPCC 2014 set, and in life-cycle form these cover a plant's whole life from construction to disposal. Zones with incomplete data are filled by estimation models, and estimated values are labelled as such.
A lower number on the board means cleaner electricity right now, not a cleaner economy overall: it covers electricity only, not emissions from transport, heating and industry, and zones differ in the detail and timeliness of their reporting.
A worked example
A zone with a real high share of renewables shows a real low carbon intensity, exactly matching Electricity Maps' own live measurement.
Settings & tips
- Values are real live grid measurements, not annual averages.
- Accent recolours the ranking bars.
- Carbon intensity shifts hour to hour with real generation mix changes.
Frequently asked questions
- Is this real grid data?
- Yes — real live carbon-intensity readings from Electricity Maps.
- Is a key needed?
- Yes, a free Electricity Maps API token is required to activate this feed.
- Why does intensity change during the day?
- Real generation mix shifts as solar, wind and demand change hour to hour.
- Is it free?
- Yes — free, no download, in your browser.
- Is carbon intensity the same as total emissions?
- No. Intensity is emissions per unit of electricity, while total emissions depend on how much electricity is generated. A small, clean grid and a huge, moderately clean grid can have very different totals.
- Does the figure include electricity imported from other countries?
- Electricity Maps uses a consumption-based approach that traces flows between interconnected grids, so imports can influence a zone's value.
- Why do some zones update less reliably than others?
- Zones differ in how much measured data is available. Where data is missing, Electricity Maps fills gaps with estimation models and labels the values as estimates, which can make them less precise.