Renewable energy: global revolution driven by dramatically lower costs and massive scale
Renewable Energy in 2025
Renewables were named the breakthrough of the year by Science journal. Solar and wind have become cheaper than fossil fuels on a full lifecycle cost basis LCOE (Levelized Cost of Energy/Electricity): construction + operation + decommissioning.
In 2025, Renewable Energy (solar + wind + hydro) surpassed coal in global electricity generation for the first time. The growth of solar and wind is outpacing even the rise in electricity demand.
Globally, ~2 GW of new solar capacity is being installed every day – that's an equivalent to 3–4 large shopping centers daily. Renewables now generate more electricity worldwide than coal.
Over the past 50 years, Solar panel prices have dropped 250 times (from ~$100/W to ~$0.4/W).
Traditional “primary energy” statistics heavily distort the picture:
For coal/gas/oil, the full fuel input is counted, even though ~2/3 is lost as waste heat, with ~33% efficiency. At the same time for solar/wind, only the electricity produced is counted, near 100% efficiency.
This understates renewables’ share: primary energy shows ~7–8%, but in actual electricity generation renewables already overtook coal in 2025. The better way is to look at final energy consumption or electricity generation specifically.
PV and Solar Energy Equipment manufacturing leader
Let's turn our attention to China, the manufacturing leader, producing about 80% of the world's solar panels, ~70% of the world's wind turbines, and most lithium batteries.
China already has excess renewable capacity. That means negative electricity prices (producers pay to curtail turbines). Intermittency caused by day/night changing, weather-dependent and huge distances (consumers often 1000–3000 km from solar/wind farms) means the power grids cannot keep up.
The solution is already here: batteries: China has the world’s lowest prices, and they continue to fall rapidly. China is investing hundreds of billions of dollars to upgrade transmission by the 2030s.
2026 is here
Renewable energy is now an irreversible global revolution driven by dramatically lower costs and massive scale. Mostly it's driven not by green ideologyby, but the need for cheap energy to fuel economic growth, especially critical for China’s manufacturing dominance.
Solar and other renewables are highly scalable, unlike oil/gas with finite reserves or nuclear with political and long lead-time constraints. Demand is surging from electric vehicles, data centers, AI, etc.
At the same time it brings major system-level challenges: grid stability, long-distance transmission, overproduction, and the urgent need for storage and grid upgrades.
The transition is happening right now at full speed!
