Renewables reached nearly 50% of global electricity capacity last year

toomuchtodo

Report: https://www.irena.org/Publications/2026/Mar/Renewable-capaci...

Ancalagon

Wait this is actually amazing, I had no idea it was that high. I can’t even believe what the US admin is doing, this is clearly the winning technology.

Night_Thastus

Makes sense - solar especially. It's just more financially smart to buy something that will generate electricity for 20-30 years with little to no maintenance than a plant that requires constant fuel, and is fairly complex mechanically with fluids and heat exchangers and turbines and so on. Panel efficiency keeps going up and prices keep going down, it's a snowball at this point.

lifty

Solar capacity is always misleading because it’s intermittent. Capacity of a gas power plant can’t be compared to capacity of a solar power plant, even though it sounds like you are comparing the same thing. Would love to know total kWh generated.

cbmuser

Capacity doesn’t matter, generation does.

mentalgear

This is far higher than I expected: a much needed, remarkably good reason to be cheerful about the future after all !

philipkglass

It takes time for statistical agencies to compile reports. I haven't yet found reports covering the growth in renewable generation (actual terawatt hours) for all of 2025. But this covers 3 quarters of the year: https://ember-energy.org/latest-updates/solar-and-wind-growt... In the first three quarters of 2025, solar generation rose by 498 TWh (+31%) and already surpassed the total solar output in all of 2024. Wind generation grew by 137 TWh (+7.6%). Together, they added 635 TWh, outpacing the rise in global electricity demand of 603 TWh (+2.7%).

pzo

worth to keep in mind electricity usage != energy usage. We are far away from replacing oil, lpg.

PunchyHamster

And all we got to show up for it are higher electricity prices

didgetmaster

>At the global level, 2025 also saw a sharp rebound in non-renewable additions, which nearly doubled compared to 2024," IRENA noted. China led that drive, with 100 GW of non-renewable capacity added last year, most of which was coal. Why is China adding so many new generation plants powered by coal? On this and other forums, I see claims all the time that solar is cheaper than coal. As the world's leading producer of solar panels, you would think that they would utilize it even more if those claims are true. Is it just the need for power when the sun is not shining? Or is it something else?

ww520

The problem is in power transmission. Transmission fee is a big part of the cost. Anything helping for at home generation should be encouraged. Right now plug in solar is starting to appear. It is big in Germany. Utah has passed a law to cut the red tapes to allow home owners to install plug in solar themselves. More states should follow.

JoeAltmaier

Used to be this was almost entirely explained by hydro. Not a lot of new dams going in, and they take a long time. The solar component is usually with caveats: the majority of growth. Because growth is slow otherwise. Solar is what part of renewables now? I couldn't easily see that stat in the noise.

layoric

Worked on the software side of increasing the rate of solar penetration in electricity networks between 2016-2020 via global solar radiation forecasting. The uptake of the software was slow the first year but then rapid once more electricity networks were struggling with knowing how much solar was in the network. Once it is easier to predict, the network becomes easier to manage, and more can be safely added, and make it economically profitable. Sucks this was a commercial operation, but excited to see all the hard work across various industries is solving problems to get more renewable energy into networks.