{
  "slug": "when-clean-energy-is-not-flexible-2026",
  "title": "When Clean Energy Is Not Flexible",
  "url": "https://solaranalytica.com/when-clean-energy-is-not-flexible-2026",
  "summary": "Five 2025 electricity systems show why annual wind-and-solar share, carbon intensity and usable operating flexibility are different measures that must be joined without being collapsed.",
  "license": "Free to use with attribution to Solar Analytica (solaranalytica.com). Underlying figures are named to their public sources below.",
  "csv": "https://solaranalytica.com/reports/when-clean-energy-is-not-flexible-2026/data.csv",
  "datePublished": "2026-08-02",
  "lastReviewed": "2026-08-01",
  "sources": [
    {
      "title": "Our World in Data energy dataset",
      "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/energy-data"
    },
    {
      "title": "Ember yearly electricity data",
      "url": "https://ember-energy.org/data/yearly-electricity-data/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Solar Analytica grid-source methodology",
      "url": "https://solaranalytica.com/data/grid-sources"
    }
  ],
  "figures": [
    {
      "id": "five-market-variable-renewables-2025",
      "title": "Variable renewable electricity share",
      "unit": "%",
      "provenance": {
        "dataSource": "Our World in Data incorporating Ember",
        "dataType": "Published annual generation share",
        "scope": "Selected national systems",
        "statistic": "Wind plus solar share",
        "interval": "Calendar 2025"
      },
      "caption": "Annual wind-plus-solar share of electricity generation, 2025. This says nothing by itself about when or where flexibility was available.",
      "series": [
        {
          "label": "Germany",
          "value": 45.087
        },
        {
          "label": "Spain",
          "value": 42.254
        },
        {
          "label": "United Kingdom",
          "value": 35.975
        },
        {
          "label": "Australia",
          "value": 33.289
        },
        {
          "label": "United States",
          "value": 18.878
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "five-market-carbon-intensity-2025",
      "title": "Production carbon intensity",
      "unit": "gCO2/kWh",
      "provenance": {
        "dataSource": "Our World in Data incorporating Ember",
        "dataType": "Published annual production estimate",
        "scope": "Selected national systems",
        "statistic": "Production carbon intensity",
        "interval": "Calendar 2025"
      },
      "caption": "Annual production carbon intensity for the same five systems. Similar variable-renewable shares do not produce the same carbon result.",
      "series": [
        {
          "label": "Australia",
          "value": 525.18
        },
        {
          "label": "United States",
          "value": 384.4
        },
        {
          "label": "Germany",
          "value": 329.65
        },
        {
          "label": "United Kingdom",
          "value": 217.41
        },
        {
          "label": "Spain",
          "value": 153.56
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}