Renewables overtake coal as world's top electricity source
- Date
- 2025 (confirmed 18 December 2025)
- Category
- Environment & climate
- Region
- Global
- Era
- Contemporary
- Significance
In 2025, renewable energy surpassed coal as the largest single source of electricity generation worldwide for the first time, a structural milestone in the global energy transition.
Driven by the explosive growth of solar and wind capacity, renewables covered all of the year's increase in electricity demand, signalling that clean power could now meet rising consumption without expanding fossil-fuel use. The shift was propelled by plummeting costs for solar panels and batteries, particularly in China, even as electricity demand surged in part because of energy-hungry AI data centres. The journal Science named the crossover its 2025 Breakthrough of the Year on 18 December, recognising it as a turning point in efforts to decarbonise the world's power supply.
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Related environment & climate events
- Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer16 September 1987
- 2024 confirmed as first year above 1.5 °C10 January 2025
- The Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster1986
- Bhopal Gas DisasterDecember 2-3, 1984
- 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami26 December 2004
- The Rio Earth Summit3-14 June 1992
Further reading
The wider story
A New Green History of the World
The classic accessible account of how environment and climate have shaped human history.
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