The Global Energy Transition in Numbers: Where the World Stands

The energy transition attracts more opinion than measurement. Depending on who is talking, it is either unstoppable or hopelessly behind schedule. The data show both at once. Clean electricity is growing faster than almost anyone forecast a decade ago, yet the global energy system as a whole is still more than 80% fossil. This page lays out the core numbers from the dataset behind this site and what they mean. That dataset is Our World in Data, compiled from Ember and the Energy Institute Statistical Review, using the latest available year (2025 for electricity, 2024 for primary energy). You can explore every figure interactively in the explorer and on the world energy map.

The headline numbers

Source: Our World in Data / Ember / Energy Institute, latest year.

The electricity mix in 2025

Coal is still the largest single source. Solar and wind together (~5,490 TWh), though, now produce more than half as much as coal and more than either nuclear or hydro. Solar (~2,780 TWh) is within about 1% of nuclear (~2,810 TWh) and on course to pass it, a milestone few expected this soon.

Two decades of change

Data: Our World in Data / Ember, rounded.

Three patterns stand out:

1. Demand keeps growing. World electricity generation has more than doubled since 2000. From 2015 to 2025 it grew about 2.8% a year, driven by China, India, Southeast Asia and the Middle East, and increasingly by air conditioning, EVs, heat pumps and data centres in rich countries as well.
2. Solar is exponential, wind steady. Solar generation rose roughly elevenfold in ten years, about 27% a year on average since 2015. Wind grew about 3.3 times (≈ 12–13% per year).
3. Nuclear and hydro are roughly flat. Both grew a little in absolute terms but lost share.

2025: clean growth matched demand growth

This may be the most important number in the dataset. Between 2024 and 2025, world electricity generation rose by about 840 TWh, and solar (+~640 TWh) and wind (+~200 TWh) together grew by about 840 TWh, covering practically the whole increase. Coal generation dipped (−~70 TWh), oil fell, and gas rose only marginally (+~40 TWh). Power-sector emissions therefore stayed flat while demand grew.

Once clean additions consistently outrun demand growth, fossil generation goes into structural decline. Ember and the IEA have both suggested the global power sector has reached that point or is very close. A dry year for hydro, or faster demand growth from data centres and cooling, can still reverse it temporarily.

Electricity is the easy part

Electricity is only about a fifth of final energy consumption. Transport, industrial heat, space heating in buildings and feedstocks still run mostly on oil, gas and coal. That is why the transition looks slower in primary energy:

Source: Our World in Data / Energy Institute Statistical Review, latest year.

In 2024 all three fossil fuels set consumption records in absolute terms. Their share of primary energy has dropped by less than five percentage points in 24 years. The renewable share has doubled since 2000, but from a low base.

Primary energy statistics overstate how much fossil energy has to be replaced. Roughly 60–65% of the energy in fuel burned in power plants and car engines is lost as heat. A heat pump or an EV delivers the same service with a third to a quarter of the final energy, so electrification shrinks the energy system while it decarbonises it. Compare options with the carbon footprint calculator.

Where the transition is fastest

Grid carbon intensity by country, latest year (Ember / OWID):

The leaders in wind and solar share of electricity include Denmark (~71% wind + solar), Spain (~42%), Germany (~45%), the UK (~36%), Australia (~33%), Brazil (~27%) and China (~22%). See the full ranking on our rankings page, or open any country, for example Germany, China or India.

China, India and the rest

China generates about a third of the world’s electricity and is installing more solar and wind than every other country combined. In 2025 solar reached about 11% of its electricity and wind about 11%, while coal still supplied about 54%. India’s coal share (~71%) remains high, but solar (~9%) has climbed fast. In the US, gas (~40%) is the largest source and coal is down to ~16%. In the EU, Ember reports that wind and solar together now generate roughly as much electricity as all fossil fuels combined. Find the plants behind these figures on the power plants map.

Costs: why the curve bent

Cost drives the electricity transition. IRENA reports that the global weighted-average levelised cost of new utility-scale solar PV fell by roughly 90% between 2010 and 2023, and onshore wind by roughly 70%. Lithium-ion battery pack prices dropped around 90% over a similar period (BNEF). Across most of the world, new solar and wind are now the cheapest sources of new bulk electricity, before integration costs. Model project economics in the LCOE calculator, or estimate output with the solar panel calculator and wind turbine calculator.

The gap to climate goals

• IPCC AR6 finds that pathways limiting warming to 1.5 °C (with no or limited overshoot) need global greenhouse gas emissions to fall about 43% from 2019 levels by 2030 and about 60% by 2035.
• At COP28 (2023), nearly 200 countries agreed to triple global renewable capacity and double the rate of energy efficiency improvement by 2030, and to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems.
• Tripling renewable capacity from 2022’s ~3,400 GW to ~11,000 GW by 2030 means sustained additions well above even today’s records. IRENA counted roughly 580 GW added in 2024, the large majority of it solar.

Of all sectors, power is closest to its trajectory. Transport, industry and buildings lag far behind.

How to read energy statistics carefully

• Capacity vs generation. A GW of solar produces roughly a third to a half as much energy per year as a GW of wind, and a fifth as much as a GW of nuclear. Compare TWh, not GW.
• Shares vs absolutes. A share can fall while absolute use rises, as coal’s did through 2024.
• Primary energy methods. The substitution method (used by OWID and the Energy Institute) counts non-fossil electricity as if it replaced fossil plants, which inflates it relative to the “direct” method used by the IEA and Eurostat. Shares can differ by several points.
• Latest year. Electricity data arrive quickly (Ember publishes within months). Full primary energy balances lag by a year.

Bottom line

The transition is real: fast in electricity, slow everywhere else. Solar has grown around 27% a year for a decade and wind about 12–13%, and in 2025 their growth covered all new electricity demand, flattening power-sector emissions. Fossil fuels still supply over 80% of primary energy, though, and the world is far from the emission cuts its climate targets require. Over the next decade, watch two things: whether clean electricity keeps outpacing demand, and whether electrifying transport, heating and industry pulls the rest of the energy system along. Follow the numbers yourself on the world energy map, in the explorer and on every country page.

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.