Global Electricity Review 2026

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Solar surge halts fossil generation rise as clean power meets all demand growth and renewables overtake coal

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21 Apr 2026

23 Minutes Read

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Nicolas Fulghum
Senior Data Analyst
Ember

Wilmar Suarez
Latin America Energy Analyst
Ember

Katye Altieri
Electricity Transition Analyst (Global)
Ember

Kostantsa Rangelova
Global Electricity Analyst
Ember

Foreword

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Executive summary

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2025 in Review

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1.1

Led by solar power, clean electricity sources met all demand growth in 2025

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1.2

Record solar power growth in 2025

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1.3

Global fossil generation stagnates, driven by falls in China and India

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1.4

Renewables overtake coal for first time in the modern era

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Global Electricity Insights

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2.1

The era of clean power growth is here

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2.2

Batteries are making daytime solar into anytime solar and are ready to unlock the next stage of solar power growth

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Electricity demand and supply trends

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3.1

Electricity demand

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3.2

Supply overview

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3.3

Solar

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3.4

Wind

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3.5

Gas

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3.6

Nuclear

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3.7

Hydro

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3.8

Coal

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Major Countries and Regions

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4.1

China

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4.2

United States

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4.3

European Union

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4.4

India

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4.5

Russia

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4.6

Japan

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4.7

Brazil

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Conclusion

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Supporting Materials

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Highlights

75%

Share of global electricity demand growth met by solar power in 2025

33.8%

Share of renewables in global power generation in 2025 – above a third for the first time, overtaking coal

-0.2%

Year-on-year change in fossil generation

About

Ember’s seventh annual Global Electricity Review provides the first comprehensive overview of changes in global and country-level electricity generation in 2025, based on reported data. It presents current trends and implications for electricity sources and power sector emissions in the near future. With the report, Ember is also releasing the first comprehensive, free dataset of global electricity generation in 2025.

The report analyses electricity data from 215 countries, including the latest 2025 data for 91 countries representing 93% of global electricity demand. The analysis also includes data for 13 geographic and economic groupings, such as Africa, Asia, Latin America, the EU and the G7. It also dives deeper into the seven countries and regions with the highest electricity demand, which account for 72% of global electricity demand. In addition to electricity generation data, the report uses weather and capacity data to uncover the underlying trends shaping the global power sector.

We make all of the data freely accessible to empower others to do their own analysis and help speed up the switch to clean electricity.

This report is the first in a sequence of annual global flagship reports from Ember, including the China Energy Transition Review, Electrotech Revolution, and our partnership in the Energy Institute Statistical Review of World Energy.

Foreword

The global energy system is under increasing strain. Recent years, and indeed recent months, have highlighted the inherent vulnerabilities of a system built around fossil fuels — exposure to price volatility, geopolitical risk and supply disruption.

These pressures are not temporary; they reflect structural characteristics of how the system operates today.

This year’s Global Electricity Review shows that an alternative is not only emerging but scaling quickly, with clean power meeting all growth in global electricity demand.

Solar has become the leading source of new generation, supported by battery storage that is beginning to provide system flexibility at scale. In major economies including China and India, fossil generation declined last year even as demand continued to grow.

These developments point to a shift in the underlying dynamics of the power system: clean electricity is increasingly meeting demand growth.

This transition remains uneven and incomplete. Fossil fuels continue to play a significant role, and progress varies across regions.

But the direction of travel is becoming clearer, and the technologies driving change are scaling rapidly.

As Ember works with the Energy Institute on the forthcoming Statistical Review of World Energy, there is an opportunity to build on this perspective across the wider energy system — combining a robust global energy dataset with deeper insight into the structural changes now underway.

Bryony Worthington

Founder and Chair of the Board, Ember

Executive summary

Solar surge halts fossil generation rise as renewables overtake coal

Record solar growth meant clean power sources grew fast enough to meet all new electricity demand in 2025, thereby preventing an increase in fossil generation. This was the first year since 2020 without an increase in electricity generation from fossil fuels and only the fifth year without a rise this century.

China and India, historically the largest contributors to the global rise in fossil power, both recorded a fall in fossil generation in 2025. In both countries, record clean power additions outpaced demand growth. This brought global net growth in fossil generation to a halt.

Solar power cemented its role as the dominant driver of change in the global power sector, with its record growth meeting three-quarters of the net rise in electricity demand in 2025. Solar’s rise was 18 times larger than that of gas, the only fossil fuel that increased in 2025. Global solar generation is now the same size as the total electricity demand of the EU.

China once again led solar build-out, recording more than half of the global increase in both solar capacity and solar generation in 2025. This pushed the share of solar and wind in China’s generation mix to 22%, surpassing the OECD average (20%). India also ramped up clean power deployment. Renewable generation growth doubled its previous record, and India installed more new solar capacity than the United States for the first time.

In another global milestone, renewables overtook coal power in 2025. Solar, wind, hydropower and other renewable sources together contributed more than a third of global electricity generation for the first time in the modern power system. Conversely, the share of coal power fell below a third for the first time in history.

The accelerating build-out of solar power is increasingly taking place alongside battery storage deployment, enabling the next paradigm shift – from daytime solar to anytime solar. Battery costs fell sharply for the second consecutive year. In 2024, battery costs dropped 20%. In 2025, they fell a further 45%, while deployment grew 46% to an estimated 250 GWh. As a result, the world installed enough battery capacity to shift 14% of the new solar generation in 2025 from midday to other hours of the day.

Front-runners such as Chile and Australia installed enough grid-level storage to shift over 50% of new solar generation in 2025 and are already seeing benefits in lower power prices and reduced curtailment.

Key takeaways

Clean power met all new electricity demand, halting fossil generation growth

Driven by record solar growth, low-carbon power generation increased by 887 TWh in 2025, outpacing electricity demand growth of 849 TWh. Solar power alone met 75% of the net increase in electricity demand. Together with wind, the two sources met almost all (99%) demand growth. For the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, and only the fifth time this century, fossil generation did not rise, recording a small fall of 38 TWh (-0.2%).

Solar grows at highest rate in eight years as exponential rise continues

Solar power increased by a record 636 TWh to reach 2,778 TWh in 2025, a 30% increase from 2024. This new solar generation would be sufficient to displace gas-fired electricity equivalent to all LNG exports through the Strait of Hormuz last year, estimated at 550 TWh. Despite the much larger absolute additions, this was the highest percentage growth solar has recorded in eight years, continuing its exponential rise. Solar has been doubling roughly every three years, rising from 1,333 TWh in 2022. It has grown more than tenfold in the decade since 2015, when global solar generation was just 256 TWh. Solar overtook wind power for the first time globally in 2025 and drew close to nuclear power. Both solar and wind are expected to overtake nuclear in 2026.

Fossil generation falls in China and India in historic reversal

The global fall in fossil generation was driven by a historic reversal in fossil trends in China and India, the largest and third-largest fossil power countries globally. 2025 was the first year this century when fossil generation fell in both countries. In China, it fell by 56 TWh (-0.9%), marking the first decline since 2015. Record clean power additions, predominantly from solar, pushed growth in low-carbon sources above demand growth. In India, a record increase in both solar and wind generation, combined with strong hydro output and lower-than-average demand growth, led to a decline in fossil generation of 52 TWh (-3.3%). This came after four years of strong fossil increases following the economic rebound from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Renewables overtake coal for the first time in modern era

For the first time in 100 years, renewables (33.8%, 10,730 TWh) overtook coal power (33.0%, 10,476 TWh) in the global electricity mix as continued rapid growth in solar and wind pushed the share of renewables above a third of global generation. Coal power dropped 63 TWh (-0.6%) in 2025, marking the first fall since the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. Combined with continued electricity demand growth, this meant coal fell below a third of global generation for the first time in history.

The world is entering an era of clean growth and exiting the era of fossil growth in the power sector. Abundant clean electricity is enabling the electrification of other sectors such as transport, reducing fossil fuel dependence across the economy.

This structural shift is happening at a key juncture in the global energy system as the world reels from two major fossil shocks in just four years. First, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and more recently, the US-Israel war with Iran, have laid bare the vulnerability of a global energy system dependent on volatile fossil fuel markets.

For emerging and mature economies alike, this moment makes the case for anchoring economic growth on a secure, domestic energy base. Those scaling clean power the fastest will be best placed to reduce fossil fuel dependence in the short term and support economic growth in the long term. With solar, wind and battery storage now cost-competitive, multiple technological developments have converged at scale to fundamentally transform the global energy system and offer a permanent route to energy security.

We have firmly entered the era of clean growth. Clean energy is now scaling fast enough to absorb rising global electricity demand, keeping fossil generation flat before its inevitable decline. The momentum we are seeing is no longer just an ambition, it is becoming a structural reality. Solar has been the dominant driver of change in the global power system, and along with battery storage, it is opening a path to fast-scaling, round-the-clock clean power. Clean energy is rapidly redefining the foundation of energy security in a volatile world. It is already helping countries reduce exposure to fossil fuel imports and costs while meeting rising electricity demand. The next step is to modernise grids and regulatory frameworks so power systems are ready to handle this new reality.