Renewables accounted for 90% of Europe’s new power last year
In 2016, 21.1 GW of the 24.5 GW of new energy sources added to Europe’s electrical grids were from renewable sources such as solar, wind, hydro, and biomass.
Clean & renewable energy
This archive tracks real progress in clean and renewable energy — from solar and wind expansions to grid breakthroughs and policy wins. More than 850 articles document what’s working, where it’s scaling, and who’s driving the shift away from fossil fuels. If you follow energy news for signal rather than noise, this is a useful place to start.
Solar now provides twice as many jobs as the coal industry
As solar power keeps getting cheaperand more and more of it is built as a resultthe industry is also an increasingly important source of new jobs, adding workers at a rate nearly 17 times faster than the overall economy.
U.S. solar power installations nearly triple in a single year
Solar power in the United States crossed a threshold in 2016, when the country added roughly 14.6 gigawatts of new capacity — nearly tripling the year before and outpacing every other energy source, including natural gas. Behind the numbers stood more than 260,000 solar workers, quietly proving that a cleaner grid was arriving faster than forecasters had dared to predict.
Bill Gates leads a $1 billion clean energy venture fund to cut emissions
Breakthrough Energy Ventures launched in December 2016, when Bill Gates and nearly two dozen investors — including Jeff Bezos, Jack Ma, and Vinod Khosla — committed up to $1 billion to clean energy startups. Its unusual 20-year horizon signaled patience for technologies that don’t fit standard venture timelines, a quiet bet on the slow work of energy transformation.
Florida votes overwhelmingly to remove property tax on solar equipment
Florida solar got a boost on Election Day 2016, when roughly 73% of voters approved Amendment 4, exempting home solar equipment from property tax assessments. The measure drew a rare bipartisan coalition and passed alongside the defeat of a utility-backed counter-measure. In the years that followed, Florida climbed from near the bottom of U.S. solar rankings toward the top.
Dubai breaks ground on the world’s largest concentrated solar power plant
Concentrated solar power is getting its biggest test yet in Dubai, where an 800-megawatt facility is rising inside the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park. Using mirrors and molten salt, it can keep generating electricity after sunset — a quiet but remarkable pivot for a city built on oil wealth.
Scotland sets a goal to run on 100% renewable electricity by 2020
Scotland’s 2016 clean energy pledge set one of the boldest targets any government had named: the equivalent of 100% of the country’s electricity from renewables by 2020. Already at roughly 59% that year, mostly from wind, the country turned a distant-sounding goal into a near-term plan — and shifted what other governments believed was possible.
Poland’s glow-in-the-dark bicycle path runs entirely on solar power
A glow-in-the-dark bicycle path opened in the rural Polish town of Lidzbark Warminski, emitting deep blue light for up to 10 hours a night without touching the electrical grid. Luminophore particles embedded in the 328-foot surface soak up sunlight by day and release it after dark. A small, quiet experiment in making rural roads safer — and unexpectedly beautiful.
Renewables top all other new power sources for the first time
Renewable energy quietly crossed a threshold in 2015, when solar, wind, and other renewables made up roughly two-thirds of all new power capacity added worldwide, according to an IEA report released the following year. China led the wave, installing more solar and wind than any other country. It was the moment the energy transition stopped feeling hypothetical.
Germany builds the world’s first wind turbines with built-in hydroelectric storage
Wind-hydro turbines are rising in Germany’s Swabian-Franconian forest, where four towers double as gravity batteries by pumping water up inside themselves when the wind blows and releasing it downhill when it stops. At 809 feet, they’re the world’s tallest, and they hint at a cleaner way to solve wind power’s oldest problem: timing.