It’s been a rollercoaster of a year for clean energy. There’s no better way to show those ups and downs than with a chart, and luckily, we made a lot of those this year.
As 2025 comes to a close, let’s focus on just the ups. Here are 10 charts that prove the clean energy transition is still marching on in the U.S. and beyond.
We started 2025 with news of a big win from the year before. The U.S. added 56 gigawatts of power capacity to the grid in 2024, and nearly all of it came from solar, battery, wind, nuclear, and other carbon-free installations.
Solar, with 34 GW of new construction, made up more than half of the new additions. Batteries had a stellar year, too, nearly doubling the previous year’s total.
March brought a huge victory for clean energy in the U.S. Solar, hydropower, biofuels, and nuclear were all part of a clean team that covered 51% of electric power demand that month, while fossil fuels accounted for the remainder.
It’s not a surprise that this win came when it did. Milder temperatures that arrive with spring mean Americans are starting to switch off their heat, but don’t yet need air-conditioning, creating a low-demand “shoulder season.” Still, this chart shows how quickly the U.S. has closed a yawning gap between clean and fossil fuel power generation.
The U.S.’s steel and ironmakers are recording slow but steady progress toward getting off coal.
Steelmaking’s reliance on coal makes it one of the world’s dirtiest industries, but all new capacity in the works as of May will use technologies that sidestep the need to burn the fossil fuel. That includes several electric arc furnaces capable of producing millions of metric tons of steel each year.
The U.S. does still rely heavily on coal-fired blast furnaces to purify iron ore. But forthcoming projects will all use direct reduction, which uses natural gas as a fuel — and ironmakers could eventually replace that gas with carbon-free hydrogen.
As of mid-year, the world was on track to spend $2.2 trillion on renewable power, low-emission fuels, the power grid, and other clean energy sectors. Fossil fuels were on track to reap half of that: $1.1 trillion.
It’s a big shift from a decade ago, when coal, gas, and oil investments dominated energy spending. But with China leading the way, clean investments have surged.
Europe had a squeaky clean June. For the first time ever, solar provided more of the EU’s power than any other source, beating both gas and coal power combined. Solar power provided 22.2% of the region’s electricity, with nuclear at its heels, and wind also beating gas generation.
Just a decade ago, coal provided a quarter of the EU’s power, while solar generated just a sliver. Now, those electricity sources are on track to trade places.
Great Job Kathryn Krawczyk & the Team @ Canary Media Source link for sharing this story.
