The rise of clean electricity reached a new turning point in 2025 as clean power sources met all growth in global electricity demand, preventing an increase in fossil generation, according to a new report by global energy think tank Ember.

Record solar growth was the main driver. Global solar generation rose by 636 TWh in 2025, a 30% increase on output in the previous year.

Since 2015, solar output has grown more than tenfold, roughly doubling every three years. Global solar generation is now the same size as the total electricity demand of the EU-27.

China led the global solar surge, accounting for more than half of the increase in both solar capacity and solar generation in 2025.

Together with growth in other clean sources, this solar surge drove clean power to meet all global electricity demand growth in 2025. Solar alone met three-quarters (75%) of the increase, while solar and wind together met almost all of it (99%).

In total, clean generation rose by 887 TWh, slightly exceeding demand growth of 849 TWh. As a result, fossil generation fell by 0.2%, making 2025 only the fifth year this century without growth in fossil electricity.

Renewables surpassed one-third of global electricity generation, overtaking coal power for the first time in 100 years.

“We have firmly entered the era of clean growth,” said Aditya Lolla, Ember’s managing director. “Clean energy is now scaling fast enough to absorb rising global electricity demand, keeping fossil generation flat before its inevitable decline. The momentum we are seeing is no longer just an ambition, it is becoming a structural reality.”

Ember’s seventh annual Global Electricity Review provides the first comprehensive overview of the global power system in 2025 based on country-level data. It is published alongside the world’s first open dataset on electricity generation in 2025, which covers historical data for 215 countries, including the latest 2025 data for 91 countries representing 93% of global electricity demand.

Click here to read the full report.