Clean & renewable energy

This archive tracks real progress in clean and renewable energy — from solar and wind expansion to grid upgrades and policy wins. Each story focuses on what’s working, where, and why it matters for people and the planet.

Good news for British climate action, for article on acts of union 1707, for article on U.K. renewable energy

Renewable power set to overtake fossil fuels in the U.K. this year for the first time

By / / Good News For Humankind

U.K. renewables made history in 2024, generating 37 percent of the country’s electricity and edging out fossil fuels for the first full calendar year on record. The shift has been remarkably fast — as recently as 2021, fossil fuels still produced nearly half of Britain’s power. Wind led the charge, with onshore generation jumping 23 percent in the first nine months of the year after England lifted its longstanding planning ban. The same year, Britain shut down its very last coal plant, closing a chapter that began in 1882. For a grid that powers homes, transport, and industry, this turning point lays the foundation every other climate goal depends on.

Dongying floating solar farm, for article on offshore floating solar

China activates world’s largest offshore floating solar installation

By / / Good News For Humankind

Offshore floating solar just reached gigawatt scale: a fleet of 2,934 steel-truss platforms now sits eight kilometers off China’s Shandong coast, generating enough electricity each year to power roughly 2.6 million urban residents. Activated in November 2024, the Dongying farm is the largest installation of its kind ever built, anchored to withstand storms and saltwater in the Bohai Sea. Moving panels out to sea sidesteps the fierce competition for land that solar faces nearly everywhere, and the cooler ocean environment can actually help panels run more efficiently. As countries hunt for clean power without paving over farmland or forests, the ocean is starting to look less like an obstacle and more like the next great frontier.

Coal pollution, for article on Germany coal use

German coal use plunges nearly 40% in 2024

By / / Good News For Humankind

Germany’s coal cleanup took a striking leap forward: hard coal use in power plants dropped 39 percent in the first nine months of 2024 compared to the same stretch in 2023, avoiding roughly 20 million tonnes of CO2. The shift is being driven by a surge in renewables, which now supply more than half of Germany’s electricity, alongside cleaner imports from European neighbors. Lignite, the dirtier sibling, fell 14.5 percent over the same months. Analysts now expect Germany’s coal exit to arrive well before its 2038 legal deadline. When the continent’s largest economy can pull this off, it reshapes what’s possible for every country still wrestling with how to leave coal behind.

Professional workers clean and inspect solar panels on a floating buoy. Power plant with water, for article on China solar power

China adds unprecedented 160 GW of solar power in first 3 quarters of 2024

By / / Good News For Humankind

China’s solar boom hit a staggering new milestone: 160 gigawatts of new capacity added in just the first nine months of 2024, roughly equal to Germany’s entire electricity system built in under a year. That pushed cumulative solar capacity past 770 GW, a 48% jump from the year before, with rooftops and desert mega-farms growing side by side. Driving it all is a remarkable cost story: solar panel prices have fallen more than 90% over the past 15 years, making sunlight the cheapest new electricity humans have ever generated. Because China makes most of the world’s panels, every gigawatt it installs ripples outward, putting affordable clean power within reach of countries that have long been priced out.

Aerial view of a high voltage substation., for article on India grid investment

India unveils whopping $109 billion transmission plan for renewable energy

By / / Good News For Humankind

India’s power ministry just committed $109 billion to rebuild the country’s electricity grid — one of the largest single energy infrastructure investments any nation has ever made. The plan would triple India’s renewable capacity to 600 gigawatts by 2032, with long-distance high-voltage lines carrying solar power from Rajasthan’s plains and wind from Tamil Nadu’s coast to the cities and factories that need it. Grid bottlenecks have quietly become the biggest obstacle to clean energy worldwide, from the U.S. to Germany to Australia, so it matters that the world’s third-largest emitter is treating transmission as a top priority. If the wires get built, hundreds of millions gain cleaner, cheaper power — and other large economies gain a model worth copying.

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Norway becomes world’s first country to have more fully electric cars than gas cars

By / / Good News For Humankind

Electric vehicles in Norway have officially overtaken gasoline cars on the road, a first for any country. Out of roughly 2.87 million passenger vehicles nationwide, battery electric cars now lead — a stunning flip from 2004, when just 1,000 EVs shared the road with 1.6 million gas cars. The shift came not through bans but through years of steady incentives: tax breaks, cheaper tolls, and accessible charging that made going electric the obvious choice. Diesel could be the next domino to fall, possibly as soon as 2026. Norway’s quiet, two-decade transformation offers the rest of the world a hopeful blueprint — proof that a car-loving country really can rewire its roads within a single generation.

Aerial view of large solar farm, for article on Gulf solar projects

Qatar and Saudi Arabia announce four mammoth new solar projects totaling 7.5GW

By / / Good News For Humankind

Solar power is gaining serious ground in the Gulf, with Qatar and Saudi Arabia together unveiling four new photovoltaic projects totaling 7.5 gigawatts — enough capacity to power several million homes once online before 2030. That two of the world’s biggest oil producers are pouring this much into sunlight says something striking about where the economics now point. Saudi Arabia is aiming for half its electricity from renewables by decade’s end, and Qatar is building in parallel, joining neighbors like the UAE and Morocco already deep into their own clean energy buildouts. When petrostates start constructing gigawatt-scale solar, it’s a signal the global energy transition has crossed a threshold that even the old fossil fuel order can no longer ignore.

Helsinki, for article on air-to-water heat pump

World’s largest air-to-water heat pump to warm 30,000 homes in Finland

By / / Good News For Humankind

Helsinki’s new heat pump can warm 30,000 homes on renewable electricity alone, even when winter temperatures drop to -4°F. Built by MAN Energy Solutions for Finnish utility Helen Oy, it’s the largest air-to-water heat pump in the world, and it uses carbon dioxide as its refrigerant instead of the harmful gases most pumps rely on. Once it switches on for the 2026–2027 heating season, it’s expected to cut around 26,000 tonnes of CO2 each year compared to fossil-fueled heating. Cold cities everywhere have been waiting for proof that district heating can go fully renewable without sacrificing reliability through deep winters. If Helsinki’s machine delivers, it offers a blueprint Scandinavia, Central Europe, and beyond can actually follow.

clean energy concept, for article on wind and solar energy

Wind and solar energy production in U.S. surpasses coal for the first time in history

By / / Good News For Humankind

Wind and solar quietly outproduced coal across the U.S. for the first seven months of 2024, the longest such stretch ever recorded by the Energy Information Administration. What makes this moment different is that renewables held the lead straight through summer, when air conditioners push the grid to its limits. In Texas and California, grid operators credited wind, solar, and battery storage with keeping the lights on during record-breaking heat. The shift has been a long time coming: U.S. wind capacity has grown from 2.4 gigawatts in 2000 to more than 150 gigawatts today. It’s a hopeful signal that the clean energy transition is becoming structural, not seasonal — and that what’s working here can work elsewhere too.

Charging an EV, for article on municipal fleet electrification, for article on tailpipe emission standards

Major new commitment from nearly 350 mayors to accelerate U.S. electric vehicle transition

By / / Good News For Humankind

Nearly 350 U.S. mayors just pledged to electrify at least half their city vehicle fleets by 2030, from police cruisers to garbage trucks to buses. They’re also committing to grow public EV charging fivefold by 2035, with 40% of those new chargers going to neighborhoods that have long breathed the dirtiest air. The bipartisan Climate Mayors network behind the pledge has grown from three founders a decade ago to more than 750 mayors representing close to 60 million Americans. When cities buy electric at this scale, they don’t just clean up local streets — they send a signal that reshapes what manufacturers build, proving that climate progress can move forward city by city, even when Washington stalls.