Renewable Energy Growth

Wind and solar generation is scaling faster than any other electricity sources in history. This chart looks at the time taken for different technologies to grow from 100 TWh to 1,000 TWh of annual electricity generation. ✅ Solar took just 8 years ✅ Wind took 12 years ✅ By comparison, gas took 28 years, coal 32 years and hydro 39 years Nuclear also reached the milestone in 12 years, but then its growth slowed sooner than wind. Importantly, this chart is not measuring market share. It is measuring how quickly different technologies scaled once they reached meaningful levels of deployment. And the story today is also bigger than generation alone. Batteries are increasingly extending solar generation into the evening peak, while electrification is creating new demand for clean electricity in transport, heating and industry. Much of this growth is being driven by improving economics, with wind, solar and batteries becoming increasingly competitive across a growing range of applications. That combination is beginning to reshape energy systems around the world. Renewables now generate more than one third of global electricity, and wind and solar continue to account for the majority of new power capacity added each year. The pace of deployment matters because energy transitions are ultimately about scale. And by that measure, wind and solar are growing faster than anything that came before them.

The latest reporting from the Financial Times highlights a point that energy analysts have been making for years: geopolitical shocks consistently strengthen the case for renewables, electrification and storage. Microsoft’s global vice-president for energy notes that oil and gas price spikes linked to the Middle East conflict reinforce the value of wind, solar and batteries in providing price stability. Once installed, renewables offer predictable cost profiles and reduce exposure to volatile global fuel markets. We saw this dynamic after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Europe accelerated solar deployment, heat pump uptake increased in several countries, and governments revisited questions of energy security through the lens of diversification and electrification. The underlying issue remains unchanged. Fossil fuels must continuously flow through complex global supply chains. When those flows are disrupted, prices spike and economies are exposed. Renewables, by contrast, are capital intensive upfront but deliver long term domestic supply and insulation from commodity shocks. There are short term risks. Inflation, higher interest rates and supply chain constraints can slow clean energy investment. Some governments may also respond by doubling down on gas infrastructure. The policy challenge is to avoid locking in further structural vulnerability. Energy security and climate policy are not competing objectives. In a world of recurrent geopolitical instability, they are increasingly aligned.

Renewable energy projects can harm Indigenous lands when built without community consent, repeating colonial patterns through wind, solar, and hydro developments that disrupt ecosystems and cultural relationships ⚡🌱. A real energy transition must honor Indigenous sovereignty, centering community-led clean power that protects land and water 🌊✨. When Indigenous communities generate their own renewable energy, benefits stay local through true energy sovereignty rather than corporate profit. A just energy future depends on Indigenous leadership, ecological respect, and solutions rooted in cultural knowledge and lived experience 🌍💛. —Based on themes from Growing Papaya Trees: Nurturing Indigenous Roots During Climate Displacement by Dr. Jessica Hernandez (2026). Earth Daughters

“Employment in clean energy businesses — including wind, solar, nuclear and battery storage — rose by 142,000 jobs, or 4.2% last year, up from a rise of 3.9% in 2022, the U.S. Energy and Employment Report said. The rate was above the overall U.S. job growth rate of 2% in 2023. Unionization rates in clean energy hit 12.4%, more than the 11% in the overall energy business, it said. That was driven by growth in construction and utility industries and after legislation passed in 2022 including the bipartisan CHIPS Act and President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, the department said.”

💥 When “more panels” is the wrong answer 💥 A common pattern in solar projects: Companies install large solar arrays, yet energy bills show little improvement. The typical assumption? “More panels will fix it.” But the real challenge often lies not in the quantity of panels — but in how the system is designed and integrated. Key issues often overlooked: 👉 Arrays oriented fully south, maximizing midday production but neglecting morning and late afternoon demand 👉 Absence of battery storage to cover evening and nighttime loads 👉 Lack of smart monitoring to align energy use with generation patterns A more effective strategy: ✅ Reconfigure some arrays to east/west orientation, capturing energy across a broader part of the day ✅ Incorporate battery energy storage to shift excess midday production into the evening ✅ Deploy smart energy management tools to synchronize consumption with on-site generation The outcome: ⚡ A more balanced energy profile throughout the day ⚡ Lower dependence on grid electricity during peak evening hours ⚡ Improved system performance without adding more panels 🔑 Takeaway: Effective optimization comes from better alignment of production, storage, and consumption — not just increasing capacity. East/west orientation + storage + smart management can turn a solar system into a true whole-day solution.

Wind and solar are scaling faster than any other electricity sources in history. The extent of that growth is worth understanding.   Solar has just broken its seventh consecutive record for year-on-year generation. It reached 1000 TWh for the first time in 2021. By 2026, it will likely surpass 3000 TWh – triple the electricity in just five years. Wind continues to grow steadily alongside it.   It’s not just the pace that makes this remarkable, but the consistency. These are not one-off surges driven by a single policy cycle or a commodity price shock. Consistent growth is structural: these technologies can scale at this pace because the economics keep improving and deployment keeps compounding.   It is encouraging to see this progress, and that RWE is contributing to it. Wind and solar have proven, repeatedly and consistently, that they can scale at pace. What comes next is making sure the rest of the energy system keeps up – grids, firm capacity, and the frameworks that make investment possible at the speed this transition requires.

For most of the last century, generators stabilised the grid as a by-product of producing energy. Today, we are building assets that stabilise the grid without producing energy at all. That shift identifies the binding constraint. Electricity system transition is no longer constrained by renewable resource availability. It is constrained by deliverability and operability. In inverter-dominated systems under rapid load growth, the binding constraints are: - transmission and major substation capacity - system strength, fault levels, frequency and voltage control - connection and commissioning throughput - secure operation under worst-day conditions - execution pace across networks and system services Generation capacity remains necessary. On its own, it no longer delivers firm supply or supports large new loads. Historically, synchronous generators supplied energy and stability together. Inertia, fault current, voltage support, and controllability were implicit. As synchronous plant retires, these services must be provided explicitly. Stability shifts from physics-led to control-led. System behaviour becomes more sensitive to modelling accuracy, protection coordination, control settings, and real-time visibility. Curtailment is not excess energy. It is a deliverability or security constraint. When transmission and substations lag generation, congestion and curtailment rise. Independent analysis shows that delay increases prices and emissions by extending reliance on higher-cost thermal generation. Distribution networks are no longer passive. They now host distributed generation, storage, EV charging, and large loads at the edge of transmission. Voltage control, protection coordination, hosting capacity, and connection throughput now constrain both decarbonisation and industrial growth. Firming is a hard requirement. Batteries provide fast frequency response and contingency arrest. They do not provide multi-day energy and do not replace networks or system strength in weak grids. Demand response reduces peaks. It cannot be relied upon for system-wide security under stress. Execution speed is critical. Slow delivery increases congestion duration, curtailment exposure, reserve requirements, and reliance on ageing plant. These effects flow directly into costs, emissions, and reliability. This is why electricity bills can rise even when average wholesale prices fall. Costs are driven by peak demand, contingencies, and security, not average energy. Large digital and industrial loads are transmission-scale, continuous, and failure-intolerant. They increase contingency size and correlation risk. At that scale, loads do not connect to the grid, they shape it. Supporting growth requires time-to-power, transmission and substation capacity in load corridors, explicit system strength and fault levels, operable firming under worst-day conditions, scalable connection and commissioning, and early procurement of long lead time HV equipment. #energy

Global CO2 emissions from energy rose less in 2023 than the year before even as total energy demand growth accelerated. The major expansion of technologies like solar, wind & EVs is limiting the increase in emissions & bringing them closer to a peak. More in new analysis from the International Energy Agency (IEA) → https://iea.li/49RHNfw Much of the rise in CO2 emissions in 2023 came from an exceptional fall in hydropower due to extreme drought, with fossil fuels filling the gap. Without the unusual hydropower drop, global CO2 emissions from electricity generation would've declined: https://iea.li/3OYVAc0 In the last 10 years, the CO2 intensity of global GDP has fallen 20%, thanks to both the improvement in energy efficiency and the decline in emissions intensity of global energy supply. CO2 growth is therefore increasingly decoupling from GDP growth. The growth of clean energy technologies – including solar, wind and nuclear power – in recent years is having a significant impact on CO2 emissions. Without them, the rise in #emissions since 2019 would have been three times higher. Advanced economies saw a record decline in their #CO2 emissions in 2023 even as their GDP grew. With low-emissions sources now providing over half of their electricity generation, advanced economies' emissions have fallen back to their levels of 50 years ago. New IEA analysis shows that clean energy technologies provide clear opportunities to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels this decade. Wind & solar PV deployed in the last 5 years already avoid huge amounts of coal & gas demand annually. More in our Clean Energy Market Monitor: https://iea.li/3uZ9VOL Similarly, the deployment of electric cars over the last 5 years has ensured that global oil demand has remained below its pre-pandemic level in energy terms. Electric cars have so far cut about 1 million barrels of oil equivalent annually. Exacerbated by extreme weather, #coal accounted for 65% of the rise in global emissions from energy in 2023. This was driven by growing demand in emerging & developing economies, with the largest increase coming from China, which suffered from a record shortfall in hydropower. China also continues to play a huge role in the overall growth of clean energy. Globally, additions of solar grew by 85%, wind by 60% & electric cars by 35% in 2023 – but those of heat pumps fell somewhat, highlighting the importance of continued policy support for transitions. Find out more on these key #energy & #climate trends, plus IEA's role in shaping a secure & sustainable energy future 👇 · CO2 emissions report: https://iea.li/3OYVAc0 · Clean Energy Market Monitor: https://iea.li/3uZ9VOL · IEA Ministerial communique: https://iea.li/3P3Xbxn

Yesterday, I saw what tomorrow holds for India—a future growing on the land of Mr. Nirmal Das Swami, a farmer in Rajasthan.   Through a government program, Nirmal transformed his 9 hectares of farmland into a solar powerhouse, generating 1.04 megawatts of clean energy.    The impact? Beyond his crops and income, it’s lighting up his entire community:   → Salim, a welding business owner, doubled his working hours and revenue—hiring 6 new workers. → Firoz, a flour mill owner, increased daily production from 500 to 1,000 kg and is employing more people. → Women farmers like Gita, Anju, and Ghisi no longer have to wake up in the middle of the night, the only time power was previously available, to irrigate their crops.   Daytime power has replaced erratic nighttime electricity, enabling livelihoods to thrive.   Rajasthan is proof that changing energy changes lives, especially in rural India.   Today, India is betting big on a just energy transition—by deploying 500 gigawatts of renewable energy by 2030.    So far, they’ve achieved over 200 GW. Partnerships like the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP), of which The Rockefeller Foundation is a member, are paving the way for even greater innovation and impact. For example, GEAPP is supporting 59 solar plants like Nirmal’s, providing 108 megawatts in support of 30,000 farms and enhancing 64,000 jobs across Rajasthan.   This kind of work doesn’t just transform lives—it transforms entire communities.   This is more than a story of one village. This is the future of India.

If you want to see where the future of energy is being built, don’t just look at Washington—look at places like Texas and Wyoming. Texas has quietly become the epicenter of the advanced energy economy in the U.S. A few stats that stand out: – Wind: Texas generated nearly 28% of all U.S. wind power in 2023 (Source: EIA) – Solar: Over 22 GW of capacity—up 800% in just a few years (ACP) – Battery storage: 6.4 new GW online in 2024—a 5,500% increase (EIA) This is what happens when you combine real demand, a deregulated market, and a culture that values speed over red tape. But it’s not just Texas. Wyoming is carving its own path forward—one that’s equally ambitious, but different in approach. – Wind now makes up 21% of the state’s power, more than doubling since 2019 (EIA) – A 3,550 MW wind project is underway, one of the largest in the world  – And most notably, Wyoming is becoming ground zero for next-gen nuclear — TerraPower, backed by Bill Gates and built in partnership with the US Dept of Energy, is launching its first Natrium reactor there, pairing advanced fission with on-demand energy storage This isn’t just about energy transition. It’s about energy competitiveness. Both states are showing that with the right policy environment and public-private collaboration, you can move faster, scale bigger, and build systems that actually reflect the complexity of a 21st-century energy economy. The future of advanced energy in the U.S. isn’t coming from a single model. It’s coming from state-level innovation—tailored to local strengths and national ambition.