How to Get Started with a Renewable Energy Chart?

Global warming, climate change, and renewable energies dominate discourses in forums, such as the World Economic Forum in Davos and the UN.

One of the reasons countries are marshaling their financial and political resources is climate change and associated problems. There have been catastrophes associated with global warming and climate change in the last two decades.

Investments in renewable energy are seen as the solution to combat global warming.

Given that renewable energy sources are about to become a reality in the next few years, there’s a need to track their effectiveness.

In other words, we need to track key metrics, such as:

• Quantity of energy produced
• The composition of renewable energy sources (wind, hydro, geothermal, solar power)
• Consumed amount of energy, lost or saved

Some of the tested and proven visualization designs for the task include:

• Sankey Chart
• Clustered Bar Chart
• Donut Chart

These charts are incredibly easy to decode, even for non-technical audiences.

Google Sheets is one of the go-to popular data visualization tools among professionals and business owners worldwide. But the visualization tool has basic Sankey Chart, Clustered Bar Chart, and Donut Charts.

And this implies you’ve got to invest extra effort and time to edit the charts to align with your needs.

You can download and install a specific add-in in your Google Sheets to access ready-to-use charts (highlighted below).

In this blog you’ll learn the following:

Table of Content:

1. What is Renewable Energy?
2. Uses of Renewable Energy
3. Best Renewable Energy Chart
4. How to Make Renewable Energy Chart?
5. Video Tutorial: How to Make Renewable Energy Chart?
6. Wrap Up

Before diving into the how-to guide, let’s address the following question: what is renewable energy?

What is Renewable Energy?

Definition: Renewable energy is a form of clean energy that comes mostly from natural sources or processes.

For example, sunlight or wind keeps shining and blowing, even if their availability depends on time and weather.

This form of energy is often viewed as the solution to devastating climate change and global warming. Renewables are becoming a more important power source, accounting for more than one-eighth of U.S. generation.

As renewable use continues to grow, a key goal will be to modernize America’s electricity grid, making it smarter, more secure, and better integrated across regions.

To account for consumption, production, and losses of energy, you need renewable energy charts, such as Sankey Chart. Keep reading because, in the coming section, we’ll address the following: uses of renewable energy.

Uses of Renewable Energy

• Solar Panels

You can use Solar panels to collect solar energy and turn it into electricity.

In fact, you may already have a garden lantern that is powered by a solar panel. When used as a major power source, solar panels are often quite large and are mostly mounted on the roof of a home, office, or industrial complex.

Solar energy can really help you cut costs associated with heating and electricity.

• Water

Using motors, you can harness electricity from water bodies, such as lakes, dams, and rivers.

• Wind

You can use a windmill to generate cleaner, cheaper electricity for domestic and industrial use.

During the 18^th and 19^th centuries, wind energy was used to perform repetitive mechanical tasks, such as pumping water from wells or grinding grain. Today, windmills are widely used to generate power for domestic and industrial use.

In the coming section, we’ll address the following question: what is the best renewable energy chart?

Best Renewable Energy Chart

• Sankey Chart

Sankey Chart is one of the best renewable energy charts because it displays insights using flows from node to node.

The visualization design tracks the renewable energy flow from primary energy sources up to the final stage (consumption).

In other words, a Sankey Diagram is a directional flow chart where the width of the streams is proportional to the quantity of flow. And where the flows can combine, split, and be traced through a series of events or stages.

The Sankey Chart visualizes renewable energy and its transformation visually and quantitatively. And this includes primary sources (wind, solar, water, geothermal, etc.) fed into the grid for consumption by industrial and domestic consumers.

So, if used effectively, it’s arguably the best visualization to use in a data story, especially when formulating renewable energy policies for a country or state.

• Clustered Bar Chart

A Clustered Bar Chart displays more than one data series in grouped vertical columns.

Each data series shares the same axis labels, so vertical bars are grouped by category. Clustered Bar Chart allow the direct comparison of multiple series, but they become visually complex quickly.

They work best in situations where data points are limited.

• Donut Chart

Donut charts show the proportions in categorical data, with the size of each piece representing the proportion of each category.

How to Make Renewable Energy Chart?

Google Sheets has inbuilt charts you can use to extract answers from your data.

However, you’ll never find ready-to-use renewable energy charts, such as Sankey Chart, for your analysis. The most viable option available for you is installing a particular third-party add-on (we’ll talk about later) to access ready-made renewable energy charts.

You don’t need to do away with Google Sheets in favor of other expensive tools.

We recommend you try the ChartExpo add-on for Google Sheets because of the reasons listed below.

ChartExpo does not require coding or programming skills, unlike other data visualization-based add-ons. More so, it has an ultra-friendly user interface (UI) for everyone to use.

This tool comes pre-loaded with a large number of ready-made charts, such as Sankey Chart, Radar Chart, and Control Chart, etc. to offset the missing ones in Google Sheets. Use ChartExpo to produce charts that are incredibly easy to read and understand.

So, what is ChartExpo?

ChartExpo comes as an add-on for Google Sheets.

Essentially, it turns your Google Sheets into a usable data visualization tool capable of delivering hidden insights into your data, irrespective of the size or complexity.

The premium renewable energy chart maker comes with a 7-day free trial period.

The key benefit of ChartExpo is the fact that it produces charts that are easy to read and interpret. More so, it allows you to save charts in the world’s most recognized formats, namely PNG, SVG, PDF, and JPG.

Example

In this section, we’ll use a Sankey Chart to visualize the data below.

Main Source	Source type	Usage	Mega Watt
Hydro	Dams	Lost	9.8
Hydro	Dams	Industry	7.5
Hydro	Dams	Heating and cooling – commercial	6.7
Hydro	Dams	Heating and cooling – homes	5.3
Hydro	Dams	Lighting & appliances – commercial	8.9
Hydro	Dams	Lighting & appliances – homes	6.8
Tidal	Through Sea	Lost	0.3
Tidal	Through Sea	Industry	0.5
Tidal	Through Sea	Heating and cooling – commercial	0.4
Tidal	Through Sea	Heating and cooling – homes	0.1
Tidal	Through Sea	Lighting & appliances – commercial	0.5
Tidal	Through Sea	Lighting & appliances – homes	0.2
Wave	Through Sea	Lost	0.8
Wave	Through Sea	Industry	0.7
Wave	Through Sea	Heating and cooling – commercial	0.9
Wave	Through Sea	Heating and cooling – homes	0.3
Wave	Through Sea	Lighting & appliances – commercial	0.5
Wave	Through Sea	Lighting & appliances – homes	0.3
Wind	Wind Power Plant	Lost	3.7
Wind	Wind Power Plant	Industry	17.9
Wind	Wind Power Plant	Heating and cooling – commercial	18.1
Wind	Wind Power Plant	Heating and cooling – homes	5.8
Wind	Wind Power Plant	Lighting & appliances – commercial	5.5
Wind	Wind Power Plant	Lighting & appliances – homes	4
Solar	Solar Power Plant	Lost	1.7
Solar	Solar Power Plant	Industry	5.9
Solar	Solar Power Plant	Heating and cooling – commercial	5.4
Solar	Solar Power Plant	Heating and cooling – homes	2.2
Solar	Solar Power Plant	Lighting & appliances – commercial	4.1
Solar	Solar Power Plant	Lighting & appliances – homes	0.7

To Get Started with Sankey Chart, install the ChartExpo add-on for Google Sheets from the link, and then follow the simple and easy steps below.

• Click the Add-on button>ChartExpo>Open.

• Click the Add New Chart button to access your fully stocked library of charts.

• Look for Sankey Chart in the library of charts.

• Select the sheet holding your data and select the Metrics option. Fill in the numerical numbers (in our scenario, we’ll fill in: megawatts).
• Select the Dimensions button and fill in the dimensional data (in our example, we’ll use the main source, source type, and usage).

• Finish the simple process by clicking the Create Chart button.

In the coming section, we will show you how to create an energy flow diagram in google sheets.

Video Tutorial: How to Make Renewable Energy Chart?

In the following video, we will show you how to create a Renewable Energy Chart using Sankey Diagram in google sheets.

FAQs:

Why is renewable energy Important?

Renewable energy is often viewed as the solution to devastating climate change and global warming. Renewables are becoming a more important power source.

As renewable energy use continues to grow, the key goal will be to modernize the world’s electricity grid, making it better integrated.

How effective is renewable energy?

Yes, renewable sources of energy are cleaner, cheaper, and more reliable.

For example, sunlight or wind keeps shining and blowing, even if their availability depends on time and weather. Renewable energy is the solution to devastating climate change and global warming. You can use it for domestic and industrial purposes.

Wrap Up

Renewable energy is one of the themes that dominate discourses in global forums, such as the UN.

One of the reasons why countries are marshaling their financial and political resources is climate change and associated problems. There have been catastrophes associated with global warming and climate change in the last two decades.

Investments in renewable energy are seen as the solution to combat global warming.

Given that renewable sources of energy are about to become a reality in the next few years, there’s a need to track their effectiveness.

Some of the tested and proven visualization designs for the task include:

• Sankey Chart
• Clustered Bar Chart
• Donut Chart

Google Sheets is one of the go-to popular data visualization tools among professionals and business owners worldwide. But the visualization tool has basic Sankey Chart, Clustered Bar Chart, and Donut Charts.

And this implies you’ve got to invest extra effort and time to edit the charts to align with your needs.

We recommend installing third-party apps, such as ChartExpo, into your Google Sheets to access ready-made and visually appealing renewable energy charts.

ChartExpo is an add-on with insightful and easy-to-interpret renewable energy charts, plus many complex and interactive visualization designs. You don’t require programming skills to visualize your data using the application.

Sign up for a 7-day free trial today to access ready-made and visually appealing renewable energy charts for your data story.