Renewables, Led By Solar, Were Largest Source of Energy Supply Growth Globally in 2025
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I wrote about the 75th edition of the Statistical Review of World Energy a few days ago with some bad news, that the US accounted for 47% of the world’s CO2 emissions growth in 2025, due in part to completely fossil/pollution-biased Trump administration policies and due in part to the gigantic explosion in AI infrastructure. However, there’s also some strongly positive news from the annual report.
This was a key highlight from the very beginning of the report: “Total energy supply (TES) exceeded 600EJ in 2025, a rise of 1.7% over 2024, continuing the long-term upward trend in energy demand. Renewables were the largest source of TES growth for the first time outside of a recession, with solar power accounting for 71% of this increase.” So, there is a lot to celebrate there among cleantech enthusiasts.
However, some who are less optimistic, or at least less willing to we’ve won when there is so much still do to, will rightfully focus on the sentences that follow in that same paragraph: “Fossil fuels continued to expand in absolute terms and retained their dominant position, accounting for 86% of TES. All sources of energy supply, globally, saw increases in 2025.” So, despite cleantech growing more, fossil fuel supply didn’t shrink — it grew. Fossil fuels also still account for the vast majority of total energy supply. As a result, CO2 emissions continued to grow, by 1.1%. As mentioned previously, though, that was in huge part due to changes in US policy and the AI data center boom. However, even Europe is still going in the wrong direction. “Europe’s CO2 emissions from the energy sector increased by 0.5%.” China’s emissions also increased, but the USA’s increased four times more.
But, yes, let’s focus on the positive news a bit more.
“Solar achieved 30% growth in 2025 and its share of total power generation reached 8.7% – surpassing wind (8.4%) for the first time and almost equalling nuclear’s share of 8.8%. Behind solar, wind power was the second largest source of renewables growth in 2025, increasing by 8.2% year-on-year.”
More positive news: China’s use of oil and diesel declined for the second year in a row. One could think that could accelerate more and more given how fast the country’s auto market is shifting to electric cars.
In terms of coal use, China’s coal consumption was flat year over year, India’s coal consumption grew by 0.6% (far below its 10-year average of 3.6%), and the USA’s coal consumption … grew by 10%.
Even if it doesn’t seem fast enough, Europe has cut fossil fuel dependence significantly through growth in solar and wind power plants.
“Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at the start of 2022, the European Union accelerated existing plans to scale up its renewable energy capacity. Since then, development has been rapid: wind and solar power made up 30% of electricity supply in 2025, compared to 19% in 2021. This has displaced both coal and gas power, with gas generation falling by 15% in the same period, and coal by 38%. The accelerated deployment of wind and solar, plus supportive policy environments such as REPowerEU, meant that by 2025 the two sources generated 852TWh, more power than coal, gas and oil combined (760TWh).
“The rapid build-out has shielded the region from paying additional costs for imported fossil fuels. Ember analysis has found that new wind and solar capacity deployed following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine avoided €72bn of fossil fuel imports between 2022 and 2025, with the largest savings coming from Germany, Spain and Italy. The majority of this saving has come through avoided gas imports.”
“Beyond the EU, the small-scale nature of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems has meant that the technology is increasingly deployed as a consumer-driven response to higher energy prices or unreliable electricity supply. The relative low cost and simplicity of installation makes the technology accessible to mass markets, which means that it can significantly change power systems within the space of a single year.
“In Pakistan, behind-the-meter and off grid solar capacity now total 23.4GW, up from 2.1GW in 2021. This rapid scaleup was influenced by surging power prices in 2022 as the country struggled to secure LNG cargoes, combined with an already expensive and unreliable transmission system. At the same time, the price of solar panels had fallen dramatically, and Pakistan levied no tax on solar panel imports.
“In just four years, Pakistan has shifted from generating 3% of electricity from solar to 22% (including behind-the-meter and off grid solar generation; see table, p72). This sudden transformation of the power system has led the government to cancel LNG cargoes scheduled for 2026-2027, and seek to renegotiate long-term contracts.”
It’s an amazing story. For sure, it’s one of the better solar power growth stories overall. However, at varying levels, the same thing is happening around the world. People are adopting solar power because it’s cheaper, you can get a stable price/cost, and it frees one from the shackles of fossil fuel dependency — especially if it also powers your electric car.
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