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IEA: Solar overtakes all energy sources in a major global first

167 points by Klaster_1

by decimalenough

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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.

by gregwebs

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These reports are inferring a lot from 1 year trends that are often changing only around 1%. Certainly it is great if new energy is coming mostly from cleaner sources, but the idea that we are actually getting rid of the non clean sources is something we should be skeptical of.
This graph shows all energy usage over time: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-primary-energy
New energy sources have always been additive. We have never gotten rid of an energy source unless we exhausted the resource or it got prohibitively expensive (whale blubber having a population collapse). Coal is far more polluting then any other fuel source and globally we aren't reducing its usage. This graph is not updated for 2026, but I doubt the message will change much.
As we now undergo a worldwide population decline things might change. But at the same time we are also introducing energy intensive technologies: AI and robots, so there is no clear end in sight to increased energy consumption yet.

by pingou

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"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).

by childintime

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> 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.

by meibo

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by quote

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With PV being the absolutely cheapest form to get energy in most regions of the world already or soon-ish (and even highly useful electric energy at that), I fully expect our capital machines to pour ever more resources into its deployment. This will go on until we have plastered some percentage of the earths surface with PV, there's fundamentally no real constraint to doing so.
Along the way, over the next 10-30 years we will have replaced most major fossil burning things - the only way you will be able to compete with PV power is if you're sitting right on top of a gas field in a location with little sunlight and no grid connection.
Incidentally, with ever-falling battery storage costs, I'd assume the need for large interconnect buildout to be diminishing, but there's lots of inertia in that system so societies might end up with some underused assets. Still better than all the stranded assets I suppose, but still.

by zipy124

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More importantly, for the first time ever we generate more electricity from renewables than coal!

by internet_points

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> 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-...
;-)

by carefree-bob

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This is a very misleading title. What they mean is that solar capacity contributes more to energy growth than any other factor. In terms of actual energy generation, solar remains far below coal, oil, natural gas, hydro, nuclear and wind.
It is basically at the bottom, above only "biofuels" as a source of energy.
But the derivative with respect to time of solar was higher over a one year period.

by internet_points

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> 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.)

by onchainintel

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by anon291

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Free limitless energy from the sky with super cheap components.
Literal no brainer

by spwa4

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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.

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