Solar Meets 75 Percent of Global Electricity Demand Growth in 2025

Solar energy met approximately 75 percent of global electricity demand growth in 2025, according to a new Ember report, as natural gas posted its fifth consecutive year of declining share in the global power mix. The report shows solar generation grew by 636 TWh in 2025, seventeen times the 38 TWh increase in gas-fired generation.

Natural gas's share in the global electricity mix fell to 21.8 percent in 2025, down for the fifth straight year, Ember's analysis found. Solar generation added 636 TWh in 2025 while gas-fired output grew by only 38 TWh over the same period. Ember assessed 124 gas-generating economies and found that 61 of them had already passed peak gas generation by 2025, signalling a structural and potentially irreversible shift rather than a temporary cyclical dip.

India, China and Brazil together accounted for 42 percent of global electricity demand in 2025 but continued to satisfy rising consumption with limited additional reliance on gas. The trend is significant for India's energy planning, as it demonstrates that large emerging-economy demand growth can be absorbed by renewables rather than locking in new gas infrastructure. This challenges projections from fossil fuel advocates who have argued that gas is essential as a transition fuel for fast-growing demand centres.

The findings reinforce the commercial and energy-security case for continued solar investment globally. For policymakers, the data supports accelerating grid integration investments, battery storage procurement and demand flexibility programmes to manage solar's variable output. India's own solar expansion trajectory — with targets exceeding 500 GW of non-fossil capacity by 2030 — positions it to sustain this demand-absorption trend if grid and manufacturing constraints are resolved.

Key figure — 636 TWh solar generation growth in 2025