Coal built the industrial world, and it is still the largest single source of electricity on Earth. It is also the largest single source of energy-related CO₂ (roughly 40% of the global total, according to the IEA) and a major cause of deadly air pollution. No near-term climate task matters more than phasing it out. Progress is real but uneven. A group of rich countries has closed or is closing its last plants, while coal generation in Asia keeps growing. This guide covers where coal stands, who is quitting, who is building, and what has actually taken its place where it has gone.
Coal in numbers
From the Ember / Our World in Data dataset used across this site:
| Year | Coal electricity (TWh) | Share of world electricity |
|---|---|---|
| 2000 | ~5,810 | 38.0% |
| 2010 | ~8,460 | 39.8% |
| 2015 | ~9,280 | 38.7% |
| 2020 | ~9,440 | 35.3% |
| 2024 | ~10,540 | 34.1% |
| 2025 | ~10,470 | 33.0% |
The share has dropped about seven percentage points since 2010, yet absolute generation went up. In 2025 solar and wind growth covered all of the world’s demand growth, by a wide margin, for the first time, and coal generation was roughly flat. Counting industry such as steel and cement, coal’s total primary energy use was about 45,850 TWh in 2024 (Energy Institute / OWID), close to its historical high.
Where coal power is generated
| Country | Coal share of electricity (2025) | Grid intensity (g CO₂/kWh) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| South Africa | ~81% | ~700 | Ageing Eskom fleet, frequent load-shedding |
| India | ~71% | ~670 | Demand growing 5–8%/yr; record solar additions |
| Indonesia | ~62% (2024) | ~680 | Captive coal for nickel smelters; JETP deal |
| China | ~54% | ~525 | Over half of world coal power |
| Poland | ~50% | ~590 | Down from ~85% in 2015 |
| Australia | ~43% | ~525 | Closures announced through the 2030s |
| Japan | ~32% | ~477 | Plans to co-fire ammonia |
| Germany | ~21% | ~330 | Legal phase-out by 2038 at the latest |
| United States | ~16% | ~384 | Down from ~50% in 2005 |
| Romania | ~13% | ~251 | Lignite phase-out planned by 2032 |
| United Kingdom | ~0% | ~217 | Last plant closed September 2024 |
Data: Ember / Our World in Data, latest year. Each country’s mix is on the country pages, and individual plants are on the power plants map.
The countries that quit
- Belgium closed its last coal plant in 2016.
- Austria and Sweden closed their last plants in 2020.
- Portugal shut Pego in November 2021.
- United Kingdom: as recently as 2012, coal supplied about 40% of British electricity. It was pushed out by a carbon price floor (from 2013), EU emissions trading, fast offshore wind growth and gas. The last plant, Ratcliffe-on-Soar, closed on 30 September 2024, making the UK the first G7 country to end coal power.
- Ireland stopped burning coal at Moneypoint in 2025. The station now serves only as an oil-fired reserve.
Other countries have announced dates too: Spain and Italy (mainland Italy by 2025, Sardinia later), France (remaining plants converting or closing by around 2027), Greece (lignite largely by 2026–2028), the Netherlands (2029), Denmark, Finland, Hungary and Slovakia (several of which have already closed their last units), and Germany (2038 at the latest, with 2030 as the ambition). The Powering Past Coal Alliance now has more than 60 national governments as members.
Why coal is falling in rich countries
- Carbon pricing. Since 2022, EU ETS allowances have traded at €60–100/t, which adds roughly €55–100/MWh to the cost of hard-coal generation and more for lignite.
- Cheap renewables. Per MWh, new solar and onshore wind now cost less than running many existing coal plants. IRENA estimates that most new renewable capacity added in 2023 undercut the cheapest fossil fuel option.
- Cheap gas, in the US during the shale boom.
- Air pollution rules that demand expensive retrofits.
- Ageing fleets. Many plants built in the 1970s–80s have simply reached the end of their lives.
Example: hard coal €12/MWh_th, 40% efficiency, €75/t CO₂, 0.85 t/MWh_e, €4 O&M = 30 + 63.75 + 4 ≈ €98/MWh
Unsubsidised new solar or onshore wind comes in at roughly €35–70/MWh in much of Europe. You can run the comparison yourself with the LCOE calculator.
Who is still building
According to Global Energy Monitor’s coal plant tracker, China accounts for the large majority of new coal capacity entering construction and coming online. After the power shortages of 2021–2022, it started building roughly 95 GW per year in 2023–2024, a pace not seen for a decade. India has also revived coal planning to keep up with fast-growing demand and is targeting around 80 GW of additions by 2031–32. Indonesia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Turkey and a few others have smaller pipelines.
The nuance: China is also installing more solar and wind than the rest of the world combined, with over 350 GW of solar alone in 2024. Many of the new coal units are meant as backup capacity and will run fewer hours. Ember and other analysts report that Chinese coal generation fell slightly in 2025 even as demand grew, which suggests Chinese power-sector emissions may have peaked. Whether that holds will depend on hydro conditions and demand growth.
The hard cases
South Africa gets around four-fifths of its electricity from coal, and its old, unreliable fleet causes chronic load-shedding. A Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) with international partners initially pledged $8.5 billion, but coal jobs in Mpumalanga province make the transition politically difficult.
India uses roughly a third of the world-average electricity per person and needs to double or triple supply. Its solar build-out is among the fastest anywhere, but coal still covers most new demand at the evening peak. Solar paired with batteries is starting to compete there.
Indonesia has expanded “captive” coal plants that power nickel processing for EV batteries, an ironic case of the transition itself driving coal demand.
Poland cut coal from about 85% of its electricity in 2015 to around half in 2025. Solar and onshore wind grew quickly, and the country plans its first nuclear plant.
What replaces coal
Countries have taken different routes:
| Country | Coal share then → now | Main replacements |
|---|---|---|
| UK | ~40% (2012) → 0% | Gas, offshore wind, imports, biomass |
| Germany | ~44% (2013) → ~21% | Wind, solar, gas, reduced demand |
| Spain | ~20% (2015) → ~0.3% | Solar, wind |
| United States | ~50% (2005) → ~16% | Gas, wind, solar |
| Poland | ~85% (2015) → ~50% | Solar, wind, gas |
| Denmark | ~45% (2010) → ~3% | Wind, biomass, solar |
Historic shares are approximate and taken from Ember / OWID time series.
Shutting a large coal plant also takes grid planning. Inertia and voltage support have to be replaced (with synchronous condensers or grid-forming inverters), transmission often needs upgrading, and some units are kept in reserve for a few years.
A just transition
Coal mining employs millions of people, especially in China, India and Indonesia, and dominates some regional economies (Silesia, Mpumalanga, Appalachia, Jharkhand). The phase-outs that worked combined closure with retraining, early retirement packages and economic diversification funds, such as the EU’s Just Transition Fund and Germany’s roughly €40 billion of structural support for coal regions. Site reuse helps too: some former coal sites now host batteries, synchronous condensers or solar farms that use the existing grid connection.
Carbon capture and co-firing
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) on coal plants has a poor record. Boundary Dam (Canada) has captured well below its design rate in most years, and Petra Nova (Texas) was mothballed in 2020 and restarted in 2023. Capture eats 15–30% of a plant’s output. Co-firing ammonia or biomass cuts emissions only partly and costs a lot. Most analysts treat these as niche options, not a way to keep the coal fleet running.
Coal beyond electricity: steel and cement
About a third of world coal use happens outside the power sector, mainly in industry. Steel is the biggest user. Blast furnaces burn metallurgical coal (coke) both as fuel and as the chemical reducing agent that turns iron ore into iron. Making a tonne of steel by the blast furnace–basic oxygen furnace route emits roughly 1.8–2.2 t CO₂, and the World Steel Association and IEA put steel at around 7–9% of global CO₂ emissions. The alternatives:
- Electric arc furnaces that melt scrap steel. Run on clean electricity they emit a fraction as much, but scrap supply is limited.
- Direct reduced iron (DRI), using natural gas today and green hydrogen later, as in Sweden’s Stegra (formerly H2 Green Steel) and HYBRIT projects.
- Carbon capture at blast furnaces, still largely unproven at scale.
Cement kilns also burn coal for high-temperature heat. More than half of cement’s CO₂, though, comes from calcining limestone, a chemical process no fuel switch can avoid. Coal-to-chemicals in China (methanol, olefins and fertiliser made from coal) is another growing use.
These uses are harder to replace than coal power, so global coal demand will fall more slowly than coal generation even in ambitious scenarios. In the IEA’s announced-pledges scenario, industrial coal use declines only gradually through the 2030s as hydrogen-based steel and scrap recycling grow. The hydrogen route is covered in Green Hydrogen Explained.
Climate and health stakes
A typical 1 GW coal plant running at a 60% capacity factor emits about 4.5–5 million tonnes of CO₂ a year, roughly what a million petrol cars emit annually. Burning coal also releases SO₂, NOx, particulates and mercury. Fossil-fuel air pollution is linked to millions of premature deaths a year worldwide, and in many Asian countries coal is the largest contributor. The IEA’s net-zero pathway has unabated coal power phased out in advanced economies by 2035 and globally by 2040.
To calculate the emissions of a plant or of your own consumption, use the electricity CO₂ calculator, and see how countries rank on carbon intensity.
Bottom line
Coal’s share of world electricity is falling, and in 2025 its absolute generation levelled off, but the world still burns near-record amounts. Rich countries have shown that coal can be phased out within a decade or two and replaced with renewables, gas, nuclear and efficiency. The outcome now depends on Asia. In China, India and Southeast Asia, the speed of solar, wind and storage deployment will decide whether global coal use goes into lasting decline. Follow it country by country on the rankings and the explorer.
Calculators for this topic
Frequently asked questions
How much of the world's electricity comes from coal?
Which countries have phased out coal power?
Which countries use the most coal for electricity?
Why is China still building coal plants?
What replaces coal when plants close?
Is carbon capture a solution for coal plants?
Sources & references
Figures in this guide are typical ranges drawn from the sources above; your own numbers depend on location, prices and equipment. Use the linked calculators for site-specific estimates.