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

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.

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.

"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).

Maybe "accidentally killing fossil fuels" will be DT's singular good deed

> 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-...

;-)

> 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.)

> 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.

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

Sooooo....you're telling me there's a chance! Solar FTW!

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.