00:00The rise of clean electricity reached a new turning point in 2025 as clean power sources kept up with growth
00:07in global electricity demand.
00:09That's according to a new report by global energy think tank Ember.
00:14Adina Lola's Ember's managing director says clean energy is now scaling fast enough to absorb rising global electricity demand,
00:22keeping fossil generation flat before its inevitable decline.
00:26And solar power output alone met three quarters of the increase in electricity demand, growing 30 percent on the previous
00:36year.
00:37Electricity production from renewables overtook coal for the first time, making last year only the fifth year this century without
00:45growth in fossil electricity.
00:49Since 2015, solar output has grown more than tenfold, roughly doubling every three years, and the cost of solar panels
00:57has plummeted.
01:00Oral Miranda is director of Ember's global programme, which drafted the latest Global Electricity Review report.
01:07Great to have you on the programme.
01:08Now, have we reached a genuine turning point for fossil electricity, do you think, or is it too early to
01:14call?
01:17I think so.
01:18In 2025, solar continued to be the fastest growing technology.
01:23We've won one more record here in terms of energy increase.
01:27Just to give it some context, just the additional solar electricity that came online in 2025,
01:33that would be enough to cover twice the electricity demand of the United Kingdom.
01:37So solar, as you said, accounted for three quarters of this demand growth.
01:42And if you put together this with wind, that accounts for 99 percent.
01:47So we got to this moment where solar and wind, supported by storage, could cover roughly all the increase in
01:54the demand.
01:54And as a result, they halted any increase in fossil fuels in 2025, a trend that we expect to continue
02:01in the next decade.
02:03Well, solar drove most of this.
02:05I mean, just how significant is that surge to the bigger picture?
02:13Yes, in the bigger picture, I mean, if you take this also in terms of renewables, we got to a
02:22moment of renewables overtaking coal for the first time in 100 years.
02:28Renewables now make slightly over a third of the electricity generation.
02:33And therefore, for the first time, coal also has been slightly under one third.
02:37So that's structurally important because coal has historically been, you know, the largest source of power sector emissions.
02:45So when renewables move ahead of coal, it shows that the technology is driving their carbonization are now operating at
02:53system scale.
02:56And how much of this shift is being driven by China?
02:59And are other countries keeping pace?
03:03You're right.
03:04What happens in China really has global implications.
03:08So first, the country accounted for more than half of the global increase for both solar and wind in 2025.
03:17In solar, it was four times larger than the second highest country, which was the U.S.
03:23And as a result, China's clean power growth, that is a solar wind plus renewables like hydro plus nuclear, was
03:32strong enough to meet all China's additional electricity demand, which translated to fossil generation falling in the country.
03:41And important to say here is that China has been the biggest driver for fossil growth globally.
03:50Coal still accounts for over 50 percent of Chinese generation.
03:53So by fossil generation falling in China, also a decline in India, that became a key factor for keeping fossil
04:05generation flat in 2025 globally.
04:08So a lot of the things you're talking about are positive.
04:11You're talking about growth that we've never seen before.
04:13But the backdrop where we're operating in is super volatile, geopolitics, geoeconomics.
04:20What could slow this transition?
04:25Honestly, the first thing is that the crisis has provided us with the data to adjust that common idea that
04:32fossil fuels and specific gas was a more reliable source than renewables, more reliable than any other technology.
04:40And this crisis just showed to us that's not really the case.
04:44The good news here is that the difference from previous energy crisis, there is now a better alternative.
04:50To just put this into some context, solar increase globally in 2025, just the amount of electricity that would have
05:02been enough to displace gas-based electricity equivalent if we had used the data gas that went through the Strait
05:11of Hormuth in 2025 for electricity.
05:14So that's really – that's the scale we are talking here.
05:17That's energy produced domestically, not exposed to price volatility.
05:25So really the LNG case here has definitely been weakened.
05:30The same way for the demand side, electric vehicles are here to stay and will continue to displace oil.
05:37So in short, the crisis will likely accelerate what's been already underway.
05:41The same way for the demand side, electric vehicles are here to stay and will continue to stay and will
05:41continue to stay and will continue to stay and will continue to stay and will continue to stay.
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