Record solar growth meant clean power sources grew fast enough to meet all new electricity demand in 2025, thereby preventing an increase in fossil generation, according to Ember’s seventh annual Global Electricity Review . This was the first year since 2020 without an increase in electricity generation from fossil fuels and only the fifth year without a rise this century.

China and India, historically the largest contributors to the global rise in fossil power, both recorded a fall in fossil generation in 2025. In both countries, record clean power additions outpaced demand growth. This brought global net growth in fossil generation to a halt.

Solar power cemented its role as the dominant driver of change in the global power sector, with its record growth meeting three-quarters of the net rise in electricity demand in 2025. Solar’s rise was 18 times larger than that of gas, the only fossil fuel that increased in 2025. Global solar generation is now the same size as the total electricity demand of the EU.