Global growth in solar "the largest ever observed for any source"

On Monday, the International Energy Agency released its analysis of the energy trends of 2025, covering the entire globe. It confirms and extends the primary conclusion of a more limited analysis by the International Renewable Energy Agency: 2025 was the first year of solar’s dominance. Increased solar production was a key reason the growth of carbon-free energy sources outpaced rising demand. Coupled with a massive growth in battery storage and relatively stagnant fossil fuel use, the year has led the IEA to declare that “the world has entered the Age of Electricity.” The IEA report covers energy use, including the electrical grid, transportation, home heating, and other forms of consumption. As such, it can track how some of those uses are shifting, as electric vehicles displace some gasoline use and heat pumps replace gas and oil heating. It also saw a more global trend: The demand for electricity grew at twice the rate of overall energy demand. All of these went into the conclusion that we’re starting the Age of Electricity. In terms of specifics, the IEA saw electric vehicle demand rise by nearly 40 percent, with electric car sales being a quarter of the total of cars sold last year. While that’s having a measurable effect on electricity demand, it remains relatively small at the moment. It’s almost certain to be contributing to the size of the rise in oil use last year: 0.7 percent. In absolute terms, that’s less than half the average rise of the previous decade. When it comes to supplying electrons for those alternatives, the central story is solar power. “The absolute increase of solar PV generation in 2025 is the largest ever observed for any source,” the IEA says, “excluding years marked by rebounds from global economic shocks such as COVID-19.” In other words, with nothing in particular driving the energy markets in 2025, Solar’s growth was unprecedented. On its own, its growth covered a quarter of the rising demand for all forms of energy. If you limit it to electricity, increased solar production covered over two-thirds of the increased demand. Overall, solar generated over 2,700 terawatt-hours last year, more than double its output from three years earlier. It now accounts for over 8 percent of the world’s total electricity production. Thirty individual countries installed at least a gigawatt of solar last year, and it is now the single largest grid source by capacity (though other sources still outproduce it at the moment). Last year, nuclear remained stable, with about 3 GW of newly commissioned plants offsetting the retirement of 3 GW elsewhere. China is the major player here, too, with enough plants under construction that it will eventually surpass the US in installed nuclear capacity if all of them are commissioned. Twelve GW of new plants started construction last year, with nine of the 10 total plants being located in China. In keeping with all of the trends above, energy-related carbon emissions grew last year, but only by about 0.4 percent. While that’s still enough to create a record high, it is well below some of the growth of the past and represents the third straight year that the growth of emissions has slowed. One potentially critical aspect of this is that China’s emissions actually declined in 2025, which the IEA ascribes to a mixture of industrial changes and the explosive expansion of renewable energy.