For the fourth consecutive year, the world is projected to add a record amount of wind and solar power — and analysts now say the momentum is strong enough to hit the global goal of tripling renewable energy capacity by the end of this decade. The numbers tell a story that would have seemed implausible just a few years ago.
At a glance
- Renewable energy tripling: From 2023 to 2025, global renewable additions grew by 29 percent each year — more than double the 12 percent annual growth rate analysts say is needed from 2026 to 2030 to meet the target.
- Solar surge: Solar is expected to make up the bulk of new capacity in 2025, with roughly four times more solar than wind being installed worldwide this year alone.
- China’s role: China will account for roughly two-thirds of new wind and solar capacity globally, continuing to lead the world’s build-out of clean electricity generation.
Why the math is working in renewables’ favor
The tripling target — established at COP28 in 2023 and signed by nearly 200 nations — calls for at least 11,000 gigawatts of global renewable capacity by 2030, three times the 2022 baseline. Hitting it requires sustained 12 percent annual growth in new installations. The world has been growing at more than twice that rate.
That growth is being driven primarily by solar photovoltaic power, now the cheapest source of new electricity in most regions on Earth. What once required massive subsidies to make economic sense now outcompetes fossil fuels on price in market after market. Wind power, both onshore and offshore, is expanding rapidly alongside it — particularly across Europe and China.
According to Ember, an energy think tank whose figures underpin the current projections, the trajectory is real and measurable. “Renewables are booming,” said Katye Altieri, an analyst at Ember. The current growth rate is not a projection built on optimism — it reflects four straight years of record additions.
Energy security as a quiet dividend
Beyond emissions, the renewable energy tripling push is delivering something that rarely makes headlines: stronger national energy security. When a country builds its own solar farms and wind parks, it insulates itself from international fossil fuel markets that have swung violently in recent years.
Countries that once spent heavily importing coal, oil, or natural gas can now generate electricity at home, at predictable costs, without exposure to geopolitical price shocks. That shift matters for household budgets, long-term fiscal planning, and the economic stability of nations that have historically had the least cushion to absorb energy price volatility.
The International Energy Agency’s 2024 renewables report confirmed that clean power expansion is already helping stabilize CO₂ emissions from the global electricity sector, even as demand for electricity rises.
The grid problem that doesn’t trend
Building panels and turbines is the visible part of the energy transition. Getting that electricity to people reliably — when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing — is the harder, less glamorous problem.
Investment in battery storage and new transmission infrastructure is accelerating worldwide. But the IEA has flagged that regulatory reform around grid flexibility is still lagging behind the pace of new installations in many countries. National targets, meanwhile, are currently aligned with only a doubling of renewable capacity by 2030 — not the tripling the data suggests is achievable. As Altieri put it, without urgent target updates, “we risk underbuilding the grids, flexibility, and storage required to support this extraordinary growth.”
That gap between physical momentum and policy ambition is real, and it is the single biggest risk to the overall goal.
Who still gets left behind
One of the most significant commitments inside the COP28 pledge is its emphasis on directing investment toward the Global South. Developing nations often have the greatest need for new energy access and some of the most abundant renewable resources on Earth — but they have historically faced the steepest barriers to financing clean energy projects.
Progress on closing that financing gap is real but uneven. The International Renewable Energy Agency consistently notes that lower-income countries still face wider financing gaps than advocates would like. The pledge creates an obligation, not a guarantee. How well wealthier nations and multilateral institutions follow through on that commitment will shape whether the energy transition lifts the countries that need it most — or concentrates its benefits where capital already flows easily.
The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 7 calls for universal access to affordable, reliable, and modern energy by 2030. Reaching the tripling target would be a significant step toward that goal. Getting there equitably is a harder and still-unfinished task.
Read more
For more on this story, see: Yale Environment 360
For more from Good News for Humankind, see:
- Renewables now make up at least 49% of global power capacity
- U.K. cancer death rates down to their lowest level on record
- The Good News for Humankind archive on clean energy
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