Renewable Energy Surpasses Coal As Leading Source Of Electricity

The clean energy landscape has undergone a significant transformation this year, with a series of milestones that underscore the sector’s rapid growth. One of the most notable achievements was the unprecedented ascendance of solar and wind power, which, for the first time, surpassed coal as the leading source of electricity in the first half of 2025. This development has far-reaching implications, according to Jonathan Elkind, a senior research scholar at the Columbia University Center on Global Energy Policy, who notes that it “indicates a lot of really important things about the movements within the energy sector as a whole, and that direction is clearly toward reduced emissions.” The decreasing cost of solar energy has been a crucial factor in its increasing adoption worldwide.

In 2024, a staggering 91% of new renewable power projects commissioned were more cost-effective than any new fossil fuel alternatives, as reported by IRENA, a global intergovernmental agency for energy transformation. Dave Jones, chief analyst at Ember, a global energy think tank, attributes the affordability of solar panels to the absence of tariffs in most countries outside the US, making it possible for people to purchase them for as low as $60. The European Union has also witnessed a remarkable surge in solar power, with solar energy becoming the largest source of ← →