The capacity of all types of power plants in Africa grew by 145 GW between 2000 and 2021, which is comparable to the capacity of the available wind generators in the United States (141 GW). According to the Ember research centre estimates, gas-fired thermal power plants (TPPs) provided 60% of the growth, coal-fired TPPs, fuel oil and diesel generators – 17%, whereas all renewable sources (RES) accounted for 23%.

The number of distributed generation systems in Brazil reached 1.8 million units in the first quarter of 2023; their total capacity is 19 GW, which exceeds the capacity of all gas-fired power plants operating in the country (14.5 GW). Such data are provided by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the US Department of Energy with reference to the Brazilian Electricity Regulatory Agency (Agência Nacional de Energia Elétrica, ANEEL).