Big news for the energy transition!
And a nice little 'told you so' moment for yours truly :)
In the first half of this year, renewables produced more electricity globally than coal, for the first time.
And 2025 is the date I predicted for this to happen, back in 2016, in a blog post for Ecofys! The score was 23%-40% at the time, with most of the renewables share still coming from hydro, and the prediction was less than obvious.
My prediction had both at 35% for 2025, and in the first six months of this year we got pretty close: 34.3%-33.3%.
As we know from the great Ember analysis (published yesterday,
https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/global-electricity-mid-year-insights-2025/), solar PV was the engine for the rapid growth of the renewables share.
Global Electricity Mid-Year Insights 2025 | Ember
Solar and wind outpaced demand growth in the first half of 2025, as renewables overtook coal’s share in the global electricity mix.
It also helped solar + wind together to outpace the rise in global electricity demand, actually reducing the amount of electricity from fossil sources in absolute terms. This caused the first - still very small - decrease in global emissions from electricity production!
Thanks to the formidable Web Archive for storing my blog post! https://web.archive.org/web/20170620003630/http://www.ecofys.com/en/blog/when-will-renewables-overtake-coal-in-generated-electricity/
When will renewables overtake coal in generated electricity? - Ecofys
“Renewable power generation capacity now exceeds that of coal” (IEA) - True, but it will take a decade or so before this is the case for electricity generated.
IEA, the International Energy Agency, recently stated that renewables overtook coal in terms o...
Kees van der Leun
