GRID · POWER PLANTS

The World’s Power Plants

Before the grid can carry electricity and a data centre can draw it, something has to make it. This is the supply side: 34,934 operating power plants across 166 countries, each coloured by the fuel it runs onand sized by how much it can generate — from giant hydro dams and nuclear stations through coal and gas to the sprawling new solar and wind farms. Together they add up to roughly 5,708 gigawatts of capacity. The single biggest is the hydro station Three Gorges Dam in China, at 22,500 MW.