IEA: Solar overtakes all energy sources in a major global first (electrek.co)
60 points by Klaster_1 4 hours ago
decimalenough 2 hours ago
Very misleading title: it should be "Solar leads global energy growth for the first time".
Still good news, but a long, long way from solar becoming the world's primary source of energy.
eucryphia 13 minutes ago
Should it be ‘solar leading energy subsidy growth’.
iso1631 39 minutes ago
> solar becoming the world's primary source of energy
Solar has always been the primary source of energy, Something like 99.95%, with geothermal taking 90% of the rest and tidal being basically zero
leonidasrup 7 minutes ago
You can look at coal, oil, gas as form of compressed solar energy, because all of them have biological source, stored millions of year ago. It's just burning coal, oil, gas has nasty side effects.
" Volcanic coal-burning in Siberia led to climate change 252 million years ago.
Extensive burning in Siberia was a cause of the Permo-Triassic extinction " https://www.nsf.gov/news/volcanic-coal-burning-siberia-led-c...
pingou 2 hours ago
"Overall, renewables and nuclear together met nearly 60% of the growth in energy demand".
That's not enough. It's obvious this is going in the right direction but adoption is still too slow, considering how cheap renewables are now (and will be).
fulafel an hour ago
In deed. We are really late in ramping down fossils usage and emissions, and the death toll is higher than the other bad things in the news headlines.
21asdffdsa12 23 minutes ago
The problem is also, that solar infrastructure is vulnerable to some of the attack vectors of climate change. The torrent downpours we see now in the us and in Europe - especially in mountainous regions are endangering the traditional valley cities in the hinterlands- the biggest consumer of solar.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floods_in_the_United_States_(2...
KumaBear 2 hours ago
Cost is the barrier
xbmcuser an hour ago
Cost is no longer the barrier as today even the upfront cost of solar is competitive against upfront cost for building coal or gas power plant. While there is no cost of fuel for solar. In China and India even solar + battery is cheaper than new coal power plants.
ZeroGravitas 44 minutes ago
meibo 2 hours ago
Maybe "accidentally killing fossil fuels" will be DT's singular good deed
citrin_ru 2 hours ago
In a long run - hopefully but in a short run big oil (outside the gulf) collecting windfall profits and Asian countries returning to coal.
dv_dt an hour ago
A substitution of coal for oil, or more likely natural gas, isn't that big a shift of emissions in the short run if it's a stopgap for massive solar and wind investments. Solar and wind install quick.
iso1631 38 minutes ago
The world's most effective ecoterrorist.
Greenpeace should name their next ship after him.
stavros 2 hours ago
You can't really attribute to someone something they did unintentionally while trying to do the opposite.
fxwin an hour ago
i think that's why they used the word "accidentally"
stavros an hour ago
boxed 2 hours ago
I mean.. we do all the time no? Hitler tried to make Germany great and made it shit. Mao tried to make China great and killed tens of millions. Stalin, Pol Pot.. the list goes on.
If we attribute accidental evil, why should we not attribute accidental good?
stavros 2 hours ago
internet_points 2 hours ago
> Electric car sales jumped by more than 20% in 2025 to over 20 million vehicles, accounting for roughly 1 in 4 new car sales worldwide.
I wonder if included these numbers in that calculation https://electrek.co/2026/04/16/tesla-cybertruck-spacex-1279-... ;-)
jve 36 minutes ago
1279 units vs total 20'000'000 units or 0,006% doesn't make a difference
What is interesting is that tesla had 1'636'129 deliveries in 2025 which accounts for 8,1% of that number. That means other vendors are healthy and it is a good thing for EV market.
childintime an hour ago
> And nuclear is making a comeback: More than 12 GW of new reactors began construction in 2025
By the time they are ready they will have contributed so many carbon emissions, that they'll have to run for 25% of their expected life span to get them back. But by the time they are commissioned (~2036), solar + battery + solar-made hydrocarbons will have made them uneconomic, and solar would have made far fewer emissions.
Furthermore, they are big up front money sinks, creating a sunk investment, diminishing the gamma of future options one might have wished to invest in, or take advantage of, something nobody talks about. Investing in nuclear is like willingly tying a brick to your foot, severely limiting your investment options.
They are perfect for government vanity projects, though, where a lot of money can be siphoned off to personal crypto gardens, repeatedly. Money laundering is likely the leitmotiv behind why you see them being built.
zipy124 21 minutes ago
More importantly, for the first time ever we generate more electricity from renewables than coal!
internet_points 2 hours ago
> Solar added about 600 terawatt-hours of generation globally
> And nuclear is making a comeback: More than 12 GW of new reactors began construction in 2025
Am I reading it right that growth in solar was 50000x that of growth in nuclear? (And those reactors of course won't be finished / online until some years into the future.)
Ekaros 2 hours ago
No, you are comparing watthours to watts. At 90% used factor 12GW would be ~95 TWh.
internet_points 2 hours ago
ooh, of course, thank you
ZeroGravitas an hour ago
No you're wrong, the nuclear "started construction" and so solar added infinitely more generation than the zero they will generate this year/decade.
The world did add 3GW of nuclear generation in 2025 but it also closed 3GW.
azath92 29 minutes ago
I made the same gut assumption, and it points to either poor writing, or deliberately misreading writing that they mix units like that in the same paragraph, where presumably the idea is that we get a feel for growth in both?
Its probably nitpick correct, because the 12GW is planned capacity, while the solar might be measured use? but simple assumptins or conversions, as another comment points out, get you comparable numbers. taking the title into account, the whole article is a little bit smoke and mirrors on clear communication, despite having plenty of numbers. Thats a shame because it sounds like even unvarnished its good results!
onchainintel 4 hours ago
Sooooo....you're telling me there's a chance! Solar FTW!
spwa4 33 minutes ago
I wonder what political and trade consequences can be expected when oil actually does start seeing real decreased usage.
I mean one obvious thing has already started: governments taxing the sun (well, solar panels) pretty heavily (meaning above VAT), which I imagine will increase, and what the result will be. It's weird to say this, but solar panel smuggling is actually already a thing now. I used to have a Louis XIV painting somewhere ...
Oil appears to be 33% of total energy usage, and if you count all fossil fuels (oil, coal, nat. gas) it's 81%. What happens when that starts dropping.
jahnu 19 minutes ago
Just to add to your point; The final energy demand is much less than the primary energy we produce due to the energy costs of extraction, refining, transportation, and inefficient end use.
According to Kingsmill Bond (great name btw) on Dave Roberts' Volts podcast if we magically could replace all fossil energy with renewables today the final energy use would only be ~30% of today's final energy use.
"We’re pouring, from our calculations, two thirds of the primary energy into the air and wasting it." - Kingsmill Bond