For the first time in 100 years, clean power beat coal.
According to Ember's Global Electricity Review 2026, renewable energy hit 33.8% of the world's electricity in 2025 edging past coal's 33% for the first time since the industrial era. The transition isn't approaching. It has arrived.
The Number That Changes Everything
In 2025, for the first time in over a century, clean electricity sources met all growth in global electricity demand, preventing any increase in fossil generation. That sentence deserves a moment. Not "limited" fossil growth. Not "offset" fossil growth. Met. All. Of. It. Ember
Renewables reached a 33.8% share of global electricity in 2025 overtaking coal at 33.0% according to Ember's Global Electricity Review 2026, which analysed data from 215 countries. The last time renewables held a larger share than coal was around 1919, when hydroelectric power dominated a still-small electric grid. Karmactive
This is not a projection or a policy target. It is a measured, verified result and it rewrites the story of energy that most of us grew up with.
Solar Did the Heavy Lifting
The crossover was powered overwhelmingly by one technology. Global solar generation rose by 636 TWh in 2025, a 30% increase on output in the previous year — the fastest percentage growth in eight years. Since 2015, solar output has grown more than tenfold, roughly doubling every three years. Global solar generation is now the same size as the total electricity demand of the EU-27. Ember
Solar alone met three-quarters of the increase in global electricity demand in 2025, while solar and wind together met almost all of it — 99%. That is a remarkable concentration of impact from technologies that, a decade ago, were still dismissed as "too expensive to scale." Ember
Battery storage is now the force multiplier. 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 storage capacity additions reached approximately 110 GW in 2025 exceeding the largest-ever annual capacity additions from natural gas power plants. EmberKarmactive
China and India: The Fossil Reversal No One Predicted
The most striking sub-story belongs to the Global South's two largest economies. 2025 was the first year this century when fossil generation fell in both China and India. Ember
In China, fossil generation fell by 56 TWh as rapid clean power expansion met all demand growth. In India, fossil generation fell by 52 TWh, supported by record increases in solar and wind generation, strong hydro output and slower demand growth. Ember
India installed more new solar capacity than the United States for the first time. India a country that just a decade ago was routinely cited as proof that development and decarbonisation couldn't coexist — is now outpacing the US in clean energy deployment. Ember
These are not token contributions. These are the world's most populous nations executing the fastest clean energy scale-up in economic history.
The Part That Remains Unfinished
Progress is real. It is also uneven in ways that matter.
Renewables have overtaken coal in every region of the world, except Asia, where coal still accounts for 52% of electricity generation versus renewables at 32%. Asia accounts for 82% of global coal-fired electricity. Carbon Brief
At COP30 in Belém, calls for a formal road map to manage a just, orderly, and equitable energy transition exposed stark divisions between petro-states and emerging "electro-states." The crossover milestone arrived amid a geopolitical landscape where major producers continue expanding oil and gas output even as coal declines — a split that will define the decade's second half. Energy Reporters
Global energy investment in 2025 passed $3.3 trillion, with $2.2 trillion flowing into clean energy technologies. In other words, two-thirds of every dollar spent on energy is already going to cleaner options even as climate rhetoric often takes a back seat to security and affordability concerns. World Economic Forum
Money is moving in the right direction. Policy coherence has not yet caught up.
What Comes Next — and What You Can Do
Solar PV generation is expected to overtake wind and nuclear by 2026. Low-emissions energy sources — renewables and nuclear — will see their share in global electricity generation rise to 50% by 2030, up from 42% in 2025. IEA
Global solar and wind installations exceeded 800 gigawatts in 2025 an all-time record and a tripling in yearly deployments since 2021. The economics of renewable power are now essentially self-reinforcing: falling costs attract investment, investment accelerates deployment, deployment drives costs further down. BloombergNEF
The transition is structural. What remains is speed and equity. The communities most exposed to fossil fuel pollution and least responsible for historical emissions must benefit from this shift, not be bypassed by it. Pushing for community solar access, supporting policy that directs clean energy investment to under-served regions, and holding governments accountable to the targets they've signed aren't symbolic acts. They're the work that converts a milestone into a movement.
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