In 2025, something remarkable happened: renewable energy finally overtook coal as the world's largest source of electricity. Not by a slim margin, and not thanks to an economic downturn — but through the sheer, unstoppable force of solar and wind expansion. This marked the first time since 1919 that coal's share of global electricity fell below that of renewables, according to a new report from the energy thinktank Ember.
The numbers are striking. Wind and solar alone met 99 percent of the growth in global electricity demand last year. Solar generation surged by a record 636 terawatt hours — roughly double the United Kingdom's total annual electricity consumption — an increase 33 percent higher than the previous record set just the year before. Wind added another 205 terawatt hours, cementing its role as the second-largest contributor to clean energy growth.
What makes this moment historic isn't just the milestone itself, but the reason behind it. Previous declines in fossil-fuel generation were fleeting, caused by economic crises like the 2008 financial crash or the pandemic. This time, Ember's analysis shows, the 0.2 percent drop in fossil-fuel generation reflects a structural shift — the world is genuinely moving away from coal and gas, not just pausing.
Solar proved particularly transformative. In 2025, it met 75 percent of global electricity demand growth all by itself. The technology's capacity expanded by a record 647 gigawatts, suggesting its dominance will only deepen in the years ahead. The Strait of Hormuz, through which flows the world's largest volume of liquefied natural gas exports, generates roughly 550 terawatt hours of electricity annually — a figure solar surpassed in a single year's growth.
The ripple effects extend beyond the power sector. The global electric vehicle fleet displaced 1.8 million barrels of oil per day in 2025, with new EVs alone accounting for half a million barrels of that displacement.
The data reveals a world in transition. The share of wind and solar in the global electricity mix has climbed from 23 percent to nearly 34 percent over the past decade, while coal's share has tumbled from 38.7 percent to just 33 percent — the first time in recorded history it has dropped below a third. Ember calculates that without the growth of wind and solar since 2000, global fossil-fuel generation would have been 30 percent higher in 2025, pumping an additional 4 billion metric tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Nuclear power also reached an all-time high of 2,812 terawatt hours, boosted by new reactors in China and increased output in France and Japan. Yet even nuclear is expected to be overtaken by solar and wind in 2026.
The tipping points keep coming. Eighty-one percent of all wind and solar generation growth since 2000 happened in just the past decade. The energy transition, long discussed as an inevitability, is now delivering measurable, undeniable results.