Renewable energy forecast to dominate global power sector growth by 2025


Nearly all of the world’s new electricity supply over the next few years will come from renewable and nuclear energy, pushing out fossil fuels and curbing climate pollution from electricity, according to a new analysis by the International Energy Agency (IEA).
“We are close to a tipping point”
Carbon pollution-free sources of energy are expected to meet more than 90 percent of new electricity demand globally through 2025. Most of that will come from renewables, including solar, wind, and hydropower. Nuclear energy is also seeing a modest resurgence, bolstering the agency’s bullishness on carbon-free power.
Those gains should loosen fossil fuel’s grip on electricity generation. After peaking in 2022, carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector could finally start to plateau or fall. “We are close to a tipping point for power sector emissions,” IEA executive director Fatih Birol said in a press release today.
By 2025, the IEA expects renewable energy to account for 35 percent of the world’s electricity generation. That would give it a narrow victory over coal, which is forecast to fall to 33 percent of power generation in the same time period. Nuclear energy grows slowly to generate roughly 10 percent of the world’s power supply, while gas maintains about 20 percent.
As nearly every country on Earth attempts to meet clean energy goals established in the Paris agreement, the global electricity mix is shifting. To limit global warming to the targets set out in that accord, greenhouse gas emissions have to fall to net zero by 2050. It also helps that solar and wind energy have become remarkably affordable, becoming the cheapest ways to generate electricity in much of the world.
Even so, climate change is already wreaking havoc on our energy infrastructure through more extreme weather. Wind, solar, and hydropower generation ebb and flow with the seasons. But hydropower in particular was hit hard last year by drought across the US, Europe, and China. Drought also curtailed nuclear energy in France since some plants use river water to cool reactors.
Bad weather drives up demand for electricity to keep homes at bearable temperatures. It’s a recipe for disaster when those demand peaks coincide with supply shortages during extreme heat and cold spells. In worst-case scenarios, that triggers power outages — robbing people of heat and air conditioning when they need it most.
Those predicaments show that power supply and demand are becoming increasingly reliant on the weather, the IEA says in its report. It puts a lot of pressure on power grids to become cleaner and more resilient, fast.
Nearly all of the world’s new electricity supply over the next few years will come from renewable and nuclear energy, pushing out fossil fuels and curbing climate pollution from electricity, according to a new analysis by the International Energy Agency (IEA). “We are close to a tipping point” Carbon pollution-free…
Recent Posts
- Reddit is experiencing outages again
- OpenAI confirms 400 million weekly ChatGPT users – here’s 5 great ways to use the world’s most popular AI chatbot
- Elon Musk’s AI said he and Trump deserve the death penalty
- The GSA is shutting down its EV chargers, calling them ‘not mission critical’
- Lenovo is going all out with yet another funky laptop design: this time, it’s a business notebook with a foldable OLED screen
Archives
- February 2025
- January 2025
- December 2024
- November 2024
- October 2024
- September 2024
- August 2024
- July 2024
- June 2024
- May 2024
- April 2024
- March 2024
- February 2024
- January 2024
- December 2023
- November 2023
- October 2023
- September 2023
- August 2023
- July 2023
- June 2023
- May 2023
- April 2023
- March 2023
- February 2023
- January 2023
- December 2022
- November 2022
- October 2022
- September 2022
- August 2022
- July 2022
- June 2022
- May 2022
- April 2022
- March 2022
- February 2022
- January 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- October 2021
- September 2021
- August 2021
- July 2021
- June 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- September 2018
- October 2017
- December 2011
- August 2010