JesseOct 9
Kees van der Leun
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.
Oct 8 at 7:39pmWeb
Show threadKees van der LeunOct 8
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.

Ember
Show threadKees van der LeunOct 8

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...

Ecofys
Show threadKees van der LeunOct 8
And for the standard reply "But India, China, ... are still building X new coal-fired power plants per week/month/year". All fine, but together they were producing less than last year:
Coal fell by 31 TWh (-0.6%) to 4,896 TWh, with its share dropping to 33.1%, down from 34.2%.
Show threadMartin Schröder 🇺🇳Oct 9
@Sustainable2050
@muellertadzio
Show threadTadzio MuellerOct 9
@oneiros do you realise that the graph actually proves that renewables come "on top", not "instead of" fossil fuels?
Show threadMartin Schröder 🇺🇳Oct 9
@muellertadzio
Yes. But it seems we've crossed peak fossil.
Show threadKarl Heinz HäsliprinzOct 9
@oneiros Not really?
Show threadTadzio MuellerOct 9
@KarlHeinzHasliP @oneiros the level of postfactual bullshit beliefs in the renewables community is stunning.
Show threadKarl Heinz HäsliprinzOct 9
@muellertadzio @oneiros It's a nice stats trick to only look at electricity for coal - that one is stagnating due to popularity of gas. Coal for metals and cement keeps growing.
Show threadTadzio MuellerOct 9
@oneiros oh for god's sake. could we start being real?
Show threadGasper ZejnOct 9

@Sustainable2050
Big and great news, and congrats on a very informed prediction.

This reminds me of that trick for always predicting correctly - make a bunch of prediction and when the time comes, delete the wrong ones. ;)

(Not implying you did anything like that.)