For the first time, emissions-free sources produced more than 40 percent of the globe’s electricity in 2024. File this under the “incredible progress, not enough” heading.
“Cleantech, not fossil fuels, is now the driving force of economic development,” said Phil MacDonald, the managing director of UK-based research firm Ember. “The era of fossil growth is coming to an end, even in a world of fast-rising demand.” Ember released its Global Electricity Review 2025 on Tuesday, which found that the combination of renewables and nuclear power provided 40.9 percent of all global electricity last year. Clean sources crossed the 40 percent threshold for the first time in the modern era.
This was driven in large part by solar power, though also paired with battery storage. “Solar power has become the engine of the global energy transition,” MacDonald said. “As the fastest-growing and largest source of new electricity, it is critical in meeting the world’s ever-increasing demand for electricity.”
Overall, renewables added 858 terawatt-hours in 2024, a 49 percent increase over the previous high in 2022. Solar accounted for most of that, adding 474 TWh and accounting for 6.9 percent of all electricity generation; 2024 was the 20th year in a row that solar was the fastest growing power source globally. Wind power also grew, to a share of 8.1 percent, while hydropower stayed steady at 14 percent of all global electricity.
The bad news here is that everything grew in 2024, including the bad stuff. The spike in demand, in large part due to the record-breaking temperatures around the world, sent solar and wind generation upward but also helped fossil fuel generation rise by 1.4 percent. This mirrors another recent report from the International Energy Agency, which demonstrated huge increases in installed renewable energy capacity that are not keeping up with the increase in demand.
Still, Ember sees good news among the trends. “Amid the noise, it’s essential to focus on the real signal,” MacDonald said. “Hotter weather drove the fossil generation increase in 2024, but we’re very unlikely to see a similar jump in 2025.” Though the world is still, obviously, quite warm, it isn’t breaking the thermometers quite like it did last year; at its latest estimate, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says we have only a 4.4 percent chance of 2025 breaking last year’s global temperature record. Of course, there’s a 99 percent chance of it cracking the top five warmest years list and a 99.9 percent chance it’s in the top ten.
The take-home, as always these days, is that to get on track toward global climate goals we need to do even more. It is good news that renewables continue to surge globally and set record after record for capacity and generation; it’s just that those records need to fall faster and harder than they are.
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