Running to stand still: the renewable share of Pacific electricity, 2000 to 2023

A scroll-driven radial visualisation. Twenty-four rays, one per year, show annual electricity generation for fourteen Pacific countries and territories. Renewable generation rose by 28 per cent between 2000 and 2023 while fossil generation rose by 70 per cent, so the renewable share of the total fell from 37.3 per cent to 31.0 per cent. Later chapters break the region into eighteen per-country glyphs, then examine Papua New Guinea, Fiji and New Caledonia — which between them generate about 90 per cent of all Pacific hydro electricity — against each year's rainfall anomaly. Open the data panel for the full figures in tables.

Pacific Dataviz Challenge 2026 · Climate change

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Data & sources

Every number drawn in this piece, as tables.

Official challenge datasets used

Power generation — disaggregated (SPC:DF_POWER_GEN(1.0)), Pacific Data Hub .Stat Explorer. Total-grid generation in GWh by energy source, 2000–2023.
Rainfall anomalies (SPC:DF_CLIMATE_CHANGE(1.0), indicator RAIN_ANOM), Pacific Data Hub.
Names from SPC:CL_COM_GEO_PICT. Retrieved 1 August 2026 from stats.pacificdata.org over the SDMX REST API.

How the numbers were built

The regional figures use only the 14 countries and territories that report in every year from 2000 to 2023. Guam, Kiribati, Nauru and Niue enter the dataset in 2009, 2008, 2006 and 2009. Adding up whoever happens to report in a given year would move the regional share for reasons of bookkeeping rather than energy — Guam alone arrives in 2009 with roughly 1,700 GWh of almost pure oil.
Renewable share is RENTOT ÷ (RENTOT + NRENTOT) as published, not re-derived from the individual sources.
The ring's radius is linear in GWh, so a band's thickness is proportional to its generation. Reference circles mark 2,000 / 4,000 / 6,000 / 8,000 GWh.
"Other renewable" groups wind, biomass and geothermal. They are separated in the tooltips and in the tables below.
In the small multiples, four territories are measured from their own first reported year rather than 2000.
Hydro against rainfall uses the national annual rainfall anomaly, so it is indicative rather than catchment-level: a hydro scheme answers to rain over its own watershed, not the country average.

Credits

Made by Varvara Ingilevich for the Pacific Dataviz Challenge 2026.
The visual approach — dark immersive ground, radial form, glow, texture built from many small marks — is indebted to the data art of Nadieh Bremer. The composition, code and analysis in this piece are its own.