Countries With the Lowest Electricity Use per Person

Every country with a figure for electricity use per person, ranked from lowest to highest. The top three are Chad (18.2), Somalia, Fed. Rep. (22.6) and Sierra Leone (24.3). The middle country of the 204 has 2,703.

What this measures

Electricity demand per person (kWh), in kWh per person. Source: Ember. For this measure, no agreed better direction.

All the electricity a country uses in a year, divided by its population, in kilowatt-hours (kWh). One kWh runs a 100-watt bulb for ten hours. It counts the power made at home plus imports, minus exports, including the power lost in wires along the way. So it is a little higher than "consumption" figures that leave those losses out. Use per person ranges from under 100 kWh a year in parts of Africa to over 50,000 in Iceland, where aluminium smelters use most of it, so a few industries can set a small country's figure. It rises steeply with income, and is measured in percentage terms (on a log scale) where it is used for adjusting. No "better" direction is set: more electricity can mean more comfort and industry, or more waste.

This measure mostly follows how rich a country is, so this ranking is close to a ranking by national income. Each country’s page also ranks it against countries with similar incomes, which is often the fairer comparison.

The full ranking

Each country’s latest figure, from 2022–2025. The year beside each value says when it was measured.

More on electricity use per person

• Countries With the Highest Electricity Use per Person
• Electricity use per person by country: trend over time and what it goes with

Related rankings

• Countries With the Lowest Internet Users
• Countries With the Lowest Mobile Subscriptions
• Countries With the Lowest Electricity Access
• Countries With the Lowest Slum Share of Urban Population
• Countries With the Lowest Fixed Broadband
• Countries With the Lowest Infrastructure Scores

A ranking describes countries, not the people in them, and a high or low place does not by itself say why. All country rankings.