Energy · Issue 01
The century-long reign of coal is ending
In 2025, renewable electricity generated more power than coal for the first time in the modern era. Solar did most of the work.
- Coal
- Natural gas
- Renewables
- Nuclear
- Renewables share of world electricity, 2025
- 33.8%
- Renewable generation, 2025
- 10,730 TWh
- Coal generation, 2025
- 10,476 TWh
- Solar addition in a single year
- +636 TWh
A crossing that took a century to set up
Coal became the backbone of industrial electricity in the early twentieth century and stayed there through every subsequent energy age — oil, gas, nuclear, even the first two decades of wind and solar. Ember’s Global Electricity Review 2026 records the end of that monopoly: in 2025 renewables generated 10,730 TWh, 33.8% of world power, edging past coal’s 10,476 TWh (33.0%). The IEA’s 2026 mid-year electricity update says the gap widens in 2026 as renewable output grows more than 8%. This is not a rounding error. It is the first time in a hundred years that coal has not been the largest modern source of electricity when renewables are counted together.
Solar is no longer a rounding error
The engine is photovoltaic silicon. Ember counts a record 636 TWh of extra solar in 2025, taking solar to 2,778 TWh — a 30% jump, and more electricity than all of Africa uses in a year. The IEA’s own Global Energy Review 2026 puts the increase at about 600 TWh and calls it the largest single-year generation increase by any source outside post-crisis recoveries. Solar now supplies a little over 8% of world electricity. Wind added more slowly, held back by permitting and a weak wind year in some markets. Hydro is large but lumpy. The stack that overtook coal is therefore solar-led, not a balanced ‘all renewables’ story.
Fossils still make more than half of the electrons
It is easy to over-read a crossover. Coal remains the single largest fuel. Gas still grew, if barely (+36 TWh). Together, fossils still produced more than half of global electricity in 2025. Asia, and China in particular, is the remaining coal fortress: Ember notes that renewables have overtaken coal in every region except Asia. The structural tell is elsewhere — fossil generation as a whole fell 38 TWh, the first decline since the pandemic, even as demand rose about 849 TWh. Low-carbon supply grew 887 TWh. Demand is no longer an automatic vote for coal.
What actually changes from here
Three constraints now matter more than nameplate capacity. Grids: the IEA is explicit that locational prices, flexibility and transmission — not more panels — are the bottleneck. Weather: a dark, still winter in Europe or a drought in Brazil still moves prices more than a press release. Materials: copper, transformers and interconnection queues have multi-year lead times. The long view is still a more electric, more solar world. It is also a world where the last third of coal is political, and where gas and nuclear become the firm power that keeps the lights on while batteries catch up.
Investing lens
Horizon 7–15 years · Educational, not advice
The investable question is no longer ‘will solar grow’. It is who captures the scarcity around solar: grids, storage, firm power, and the metals that connect them. Utilities with interconnection rights, transformer and cable makers, and operators of existing nuclear and flexible gas sit closer to the bottleneck than another commoditised panel assembler.
Where the map points
- Regulated transmission and distribution utilities in markets with data-centre and EV load growth
- Grid equipment: transformers, high-voltage cable, switchgear
- Utility-scale storage and long-duration experiments, sized to interconnection queues
- Existing nuclear fleets with life-extension optionality; uranium as a tight upstream
What can break it
- Policy reversal on permitting or offtake can stall a decade of queue
- Oversupply in modules and polysilicon compresses manufacturer margins even as TWh grow
- A gas-price or drought shock can make the ‘transition’ trade look late for several years
CHART does not recommend securities, funds or trades. Figures can be revised by their publishers. Do your own research and consider regulated advice before allocating capital.
Sources
Every headline number traces to a named publisher. Contextual sources inform the essay, not the key stat.
- 01PrimaryEmber2026Global Electricity Review 2026
2025: renewables 10,730 TWh (33.8%) overtook coal 10,476 TWh (33.0%). Solar 2,778 TWh (+636 TWh).
- 02PrimaryInternational Energy Agency2026Global Energy Review 2026 — Key findings
Solar PV +600 TWh in 2025, the largest single-year increase by any source outside post-crisis recoveries.
- 03CorroboratedInternational Energy Agency2026Electricity Mid-Year Update 2026 — Executive summary
Renewables overtake coal-fired output in 2026; solar set to pass wind as the second-largest renewable source.
- 04CorroboratedInternational Energy Agency2025Electricity Mid-Year Update 2025
Global electricity demand +3.3% in 2025 and +3.7% in 2026; consumption over 29,000 TWh in 2026.
Keep reading
The power behind intelligence
Data centres used 485 TWh in 2025. The IEA’s base case still nearly doubles that by 2030 — and AI sites are growing three times as fast as the rest.
485 TWh
Data-centre electricity, 2025
The copper bind
Electrification, grids and data centres all drink copper. The IEA’s 2025 outlook still sees a 30% mined-supply gap by 2035.
30%
Implied copper supply shortfall by 2035
The nuclear return
438 reactors, 397 GWe, a record year of generation — and a political target to triple capacity by 2050. AI offtake is the new customer.
397 GWe
Operable nuclear capacity, Oct 2025
One in four new cars is now electric
The IEA counted 21 million electric cars in 2025. China already sells more EVs than ICE. America is the holdout.
25%
World new-car sales that were electric, 2025
Batteries now outbuild the gas turbine
The world added 108 GW of batteries in 2025 — more new capacity than gas plants managed in their best year. China installed most of it.
108 GW
Battery storage added in 2025
The first three years above 1.5°C
2024 was the hottest year in the instrumental record. 2023–2025, taken together, were the first stretch to average more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial.
1.47°C
2025 vs 1850–1900 (Copernicus ERA5)