Renewables Reached Nearly 50% of Global Electricity Capacity Last Year (theregister.com) 114
Renewables made up nearly half of global installed electricity capacity by the end of 2025, "accounting for 85.6% of global capacity expansion," reports the Register, citing the International Renewable Energy Agency's (IRENA) 2026 Renewable Capacity Statistics report. "Per IRENA's data, that aforementioned 85.6 percent share of new power capacity additions was actually a decrease from 2024, when renewables were about 92 percent of global capacity additions. Yes, the share of total installed power capacity in 2025 rose again, but non-renewable capacity additions also rebounded sharply last year." From the report: Solar, in turn, was the dominant renewable technology, accounting for nearly three-quarters of last year's renewable capacity additions. Those additions totaled 692 GW in 2025, lifting installed renewable capacity by a record 15.5 percent year over year, IRENA noted. By the end of last year, renewables accounted for 49.4 percent of global installed electricity capacity, while variable renewable sources such as solar and wind represented roughly 35 percent of total capacity. For reference, it was only in 2023 that renewable energy sources crossed the threshold of generating 30 percent of the world's electricity.
Onwards and Upwards (Score:5, Insightful)
Renewables rock (Score:5, Insightful)
I would expect it to be even more. In Germany I think every euro spent on renewables makes us less dependent on the strait of hormuz and other fossil nighmares.
https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft... [www.zeit.de]
I am glad for every cent that does not fuel Exxon and the likes and the corruption of democracy that follows from that dependency.
In digital we need digital sovereignty, in energy we need energy sovereignty.
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In Germany first quarter this year, electricity from renewables was 53%.
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So why complain you need to recharge, electricity is cheaper, especially since Trump closed the Strait of Hormuz.
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Warsaw to Berlin is about a 5.5 hour drive. It also seems to be cherry picked as a distance that is just slightly beyond the range of an average EV, but just in range of an average ICE. The average EV can make the trip with one charging stop from 20% to 80%. The average time for that charge is about half an hour (though some EVs can do it about a quarter of an hour). So, that makes the 5.5 hour drive a 6 hour one. That's about a 9% increase in travel time or less. Not showstopping for most people.
Basically
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It is simply a stupid WW2 pun, nothing more.
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Ah. Of course. Missed that one. Doesn't help that I inverted the direction since I didn't think it mattered. Thanks for pointing that out. Of course that means that the distance was not carefully chosen to be right in between typical ranges for BEVs and ICE vehicles, it was just a coincidence. Not sure what to think about that. I assumed that the poster was being manipulative with the choice, but at least clever. Now it looks like I have to drop the clever bit, but give them more credit for not being manipu
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Why would you want to?
People always come up with these ridiculous cases where I need to tow my 5 ton motor home 3000 miles to grandmas house for Christmas.
If you prefer, just keep sending money to the petro-states and corrupt corporations and keep funding wars to keep the whole thing running.
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No idea.
If you mean tank: depends how big your tank is.
If you mean battery: depends how big your battery is.
The distance is 572km ... so basically every electric car and every gasoline/diesel car should make it.
However: if you mean with Tank a Panzer ... then one tank would not get you very far. As Poland and Germany is now allied ... I assume, yes you can go with one Tank with renewables from Berlin to Warsaw.
Re:Renewables rock (Score:4, Insightful)
Dear Elektroschock,
Please be informed that your post with the title "Renewables Rock" was well received. On review we have determined your views are not aligned with the culture and values of the greatest country and you have been formally black listed from all future ESTA travel approvals to the United States.
Sincerely,
Markwayne Mullin, THE GREATEST DHS Secretary, GREAT GUY, WONDERFUL GUY.
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Uah I'm sad that I got an "Insightful" mod for this. I was going for "Funny" but I guess that's just the time we live in.
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Rammstein approved (Score:2)
German Electricity, made from German sun
https://i.redd.it/tvi4ea7unang... [i.redd.it]
Rammstein approved
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Germany, whilst not as bad as some try to project, has a seriously broken transmission network with not enough connectivity between the North and the South of the country and too much reliance on links through Sweden which annoy the Swedes by pushing up their energy prices. They need to get interconnection to both Scotland (direct or through Denmark) and to Morocco for wind (via Italy and Tunisia? It would really make sense for them to have a huge set of Solar farms in the North African desert).
If Germany w
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It's even more complicated. German law treats the grid as "copper plate"
Somewhat the same as in the USA. Power wheeling charges were inconsistent and often negotiated bilateraly between neighboring utilities. Energy flow was handled within vertically integrated utilities. From their generators through their transmission grid to their customers.
This is all changing. But the side effect will be that all the solar farms way off in the desert will have to pay a bill to get their energy to customers. And another bill to have an intermediating utility store it for them. The days of
Its about money, not energy source (Score:3)
I am glad for every cent that does not fuel Exxon and the likes and the corruption of democracy that follows from that dependency.
Better renewables than fossil fuels, but better Exxon than Putin. Hopefully Germany learned from that mistake.
Also, Exxon is an energy company, they will be happy to sell you renewable energy in the future, so you are likely not done with them.These energy companies just want to make money. While fossil fuels are the most profitable that will be their focus. However when renewables are more profitable these same energy companies will switch their focus to renewables. Its about the money, not the energy s
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Exxon sposored radical political groups in Europe that insulted colleagues of mine.
They contracted the DCI group for propaganda activities. - these are people I don't want to make business with.
I am furious as a European that last year the EU delegation hired the DCI group for a minor contract.
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Exxon sposored radical political groups in Europe that insulted colleagues of mine.
So did the Soviet Union. Matter of fact the German Green Party admits it was successfully infiltrated.
They contracted the DCI group for propaganda activities. - these are people I don't want to make business with. I am furious as a European that last year the EU delegation hired the DCI group for a minor contract.
And yet you turned to Putin for oil and gas.
Carter had solar cells on the White House (Score:5, Interesting)
Imagine where the US would be today if politicians had been just a little less greedy and corrupt in the 1970s, and embraced Jimmy Carter's commitment to renewable energy. Probably not a wholesale conversion, but during times like these, all of us across the Free World could just sit back with zero f^cks given and a bag of popcorn, and watch a bunch of religious fanatics burn the whole Middle East to the ground.
Everybody wins.
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While I agree it'd be better times for the people in the US if it stuck to that trajectory, there would also very likely be way fewer religious fanatics in the middle east right now as well.
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Excellent point!
fewer religious fanatics in the middle east right (Score:2)
There would probably be just as many religious fanatics, but the wouldn't be running the countries involved in the conflict.
(Note that Bibi is also backed by religious fanatics, and there are some in the MAGA crowd too)
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The funny thing about having your polity run by religious fanatics is that one of their top priorities is to make more religious fanatics.
https://jonathanlarsen.substac... [substack.com]
Re:Carter had solar cells on the White House (Score:4)
I wish the whitehouse had fewer religious fanatics.
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With any luck, there would be a hell of a lot fewer religious fanatics in the US.
Right, argue with me. Tell me that Sec. Kegsbreath isn't.
Re:Carter had solar cells on the White House (Score:5, Informative)
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My point is that if the US, which at the time was one of the world's leaders in technological innovation, had put time and resources into developing renewable energy, the whole Free World would have weaned itself off burning fossil fuels for power. There would still be other uses for petrochemicals, plastics especially, but the Middle East's stranglehold on the world economy would have been well and truly broken. Looking back at the history of the last half century, including the environmental impact of c
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And Reagan ripped them out.
Republicans hate things which allow end users to become energy independent. They want you coming back to the pumps, or paying for natural gas.
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The number one fanatic burning the Middle East to the ground happens to be president of the US. Is he a religious fanatic? Yes, I think so. He devoutly believes that he is God.
Fateful irony (Score:3)
I find it really funny that the very particular type of person who low key anticipates large scale society to collapse at any moment and wants to stake a claim to being ready to rough it out on their own or at best as part of small local community can, in 2026 and most populated latitudes best secure mobility by getting an electric car and covering their roof with solar panels. The pretty much same thing applies to any wannabe autarkist nation that doesn't happen to sit on a massive oil field too.
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Don't get me wrong, I'd LOVE to have a small nuclear reactor in my basement. But the solar panels and a battery are lot more plausible and pretty much no matter what goes down, gonna remain more sourceable than nuclear fuel or steady supply of oil.
If the biosphere on this dumbass planet survives, it'll be through the extreme luck that once we chipped at battery and solar panel manufacturing for long enough, fossil fuels turned out to be simply not even that convenient in comparison.
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But the solar panels and a battery are lot more plausible and pretty much no matter what goes down, gonna remain more sourceable than nuclear fuel or steady supply of oil.
Yep, even if you couldn't get lithium batteries, at least you could still make inferior lead-acid ones. You might need a battery room to accommodate the homebuilt kind, but they'd still be feasible.
If the biosphere on this dumbass planet survives, it'll be through the extreme luck that once we chipped at battery and solar panel manufacturing for long enough
Sadly, it's going to take a lot more than that, but it certainly would be a big help.
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covering their roof with solar panels.
I'd love to. But I can't get the neighbor to cut down his trees. Not that they're all bad. They provide good shade in the summer and reduce AC demand.
TDS (Score:3, Insightful)
This explains why Trump has been getting more and more angry and deranged. I feel bad for him. It's not his fault. It can happen to any retarded person.
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Capacity !=production (Score:4, Informative)
Re: Capacity !=production (Score:2)
I came here to comment along those lines.. what do they consider 'capacity'? Is it a fictional amount that would occur if maximum wind and maximum sun fell onto all turbines and panels, or is it an amount that they realistically generate on average?
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"Capacity" is extremely important for generating headlines. Less so for generating electricity.
But the numbers for actual generation of electricity from renewables are still impressive. Globally is is around 34%. Not bad!
I'll take a real 34% over a hyped 50% any day. The growth in solar over the last ten years has been amazing. And now be are building the batteries needed to push the numbers higher.
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Fair enough, 34% globally is a good number. But on the other hand, that's what it is today, not in a world with mainstream EVs and more datacenters built and private corporations buying entire nuclear power plants. I just wish we could be free of flashy headlines and just get real data. I find that I have formed a suspicion of anyone promoting electric because so often there is a reality distortion filter with them.
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not in a world with mainstream EVs
I'm not particularly worried about it. Our ability to build and deploy Wind and PV (measured in GW capacity) is much larger than our ability to build and deploy EV batteries (measured in GWh capacity). China is deploying around 1 GW of new PV per day within its own borders, and exporting a huge amount to other countries. Meanwhile, the estimates of China's battery manufacturing capacity (EVs, stationary, portables) is on the order of 10 GWh/day.
As you rightly point out, capacity (GW peak) is not the s
IC use equal electrical power as EV (Score:2)
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Generally oil refineries are on industrial power grids, not residential grids that aren't designed for the power delivery.
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When I say infrastructure I mean generation AND delivery. If my neighborhood needs a bigger infrastructure because now 100 people need to charge at night then I will be paying for that. Now electricity will be approaching the price of gas but I still use it to heat my home.
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So to avoid you sponsoring y
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I work from home. I fill my tank maybe once every couple weeks. My vehicle will stay close to top shape for what I need it for. An EV will never pay off for me.
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You need to multiply by the capacity factor to get how much is produced. Here is data [wikipedia.org] on the capacity factors of many sources of energy. It ranges from about 90% for nuclear down to only about 5% for natural gas combustion turbines. Renewables are at various places in between: around 20% for solar, 30% for wind, 70% for geothermal.
Those are just averages, and there's a lot of variation. For example, wind farms can be anywhere from 21% to 52%, with offshore ones tending to have higher capacity factors th
Re:Capacity !=production (Score:5, Informative)
Capacity factor is what they look up. Take the headline number and divide by three for wind and four for solar. Keep in mind wind and solar both go to zero on a routine basis.
Obligatory graph, green line is wind plus solar.
https://transmission.bpa.gov/b... [bpa.gov]
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Re: Capacity !=production (Score:2)
To power the entire USA through a winter night using only solar and lithium batteries, it would cost approximately $1.17 trillion for the battery storage alone.
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Literally no-one is proposing doing this. As a reminder, renewables includes wind and hydro and tidal and geothermal etc, and storage includes flow and sodium and pumped hydro etc. Seriously, what is the point of pretending that anyone is pushing for a single power source and a single storage technology, when they're not?
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All renewables require *storage*. Storage is more than just batteries. How are you unable to comprehend the point I was making?
Let me try to explain this simply: wind blows a lot at night when sun doesn’t shine. So we need fewer batteries if we have wind and solar than if we just have solar. Do you understand now? Continuing to focus on adding just one extra power source, wind, leads to a reduction in storage requirements of about 40 to 60%. You also dramatically cut the duration of energy deficits an
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1. Absolutely none of what you've said invalidates either my point that adding pumped hydro alone cuts costs by hundreds of billions for an energy system, nor my broader point that it's stupid to talk about the costs of energy systems by looking at the costs of running one of solar and Li alone
2. None of what you've said is a reason not to do pumped hydro. Pumped hydro can store GWh easily, plants last 50 to 100+ years, and cost per kWh is very low despite refurb costs etc. Should it be done thoughtfully? O
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But none of them normally need 100% battery coverage. It's all about figuring out the risk of a period of downtime over a wide geographical area and what amount of risk is acceptable. Just like with other power sources.
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Thank the Trump-Lord that coal and natural gas plants are free [ourmidland.com], eh?
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To power the entire USA through a winter night using only solar and lithium batteries, it would cost approximately $1.17 trillion for the battery storage alone.
So, one war in Iran. Seems like a good trade.
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OK, you're leaving out one major thing, but also a bunch of other things. I'll deal with the other things first, then get to the major thing at the end.
Assuming your numbers are right, and I think you need to provide your sources, that would be about $3,342.87 per person in the US. Of course, those would last a good 15 years or so. That means $222.86 per person per year, or $18.57 per person per month on their power bill. So, not too bad if your numbers are accurate.
There is the question, of course, of if y
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Well, I didn't really go into it there since I was just responding to the specific claims from the poster I responded to. For what you mentioned, I will first point out that an extensive power grid significantly mitigates Dunkelflaute. However, when it is nationwide, I should also point out that, in my post, I explicitly ignored other power sources and storage methods like geothermal and hydro/hydro storage. If we don't ignore those, we get an additional buffer. What I think is that we should have a tiered
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The future is bright... (Score:5, Interesting)
I do LOVE how, with the Iran war, he has done as much for renewables as EV subsidies ever did !
Panel, baby, panel !
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Of course not. Their cult leader will say it was Biden or Obama's fault.
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Maybe God does work in mysterious ways. I thought She sent him as a substitute for a locusts to punish us for mistreating the planet, but maybe Don's dual-purpose. She's good!
You don't see wars fought over solar panels (Score:2)
or wind turbines. That's because oil makes the world work.
Without oil, natgas and coal we live in the 18th century.
Re:You don't see wars fought over solar panels (Score:5, Insightful)
You won't see wars fought over solar panels or wind turbines because "anyone" (industrialized) can make them and it's not cost-effective to take them. Once the solar panels are installed somewhere, it's cheaper to make more than to go there, fight the people who have them, uninstall them, pack them up, ship them home, and then reinstall them. This goes many times over for the wind turbines.
You don't see wars fought over coal plants or natural gas power plants or nuclear plants either, at most they are objectives but more commonly they're just targets in wars. And it's for the same reason, it's not worth it to try to ship them home.
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Solar panels are the end product. If wars were to be fought, it would over the materials used to make solar panels.
BTW: I think almost all solar panels and wind turbines are made by China. Other countries could make them, but it would not be easy, and it could not happen overnight.
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Solar panels are mostly made out of silicon and glass, which are in turn made out of stuff that's everywhere. It gets everywhere too. You also need a conductor, which isn't as common but you've got a few choices and between them they're pretty well distributed.
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My solar panels were made in Singapore. Besides China the top producers are Vietnam, Malaysia, and India. They are also made in a host of other countries including Canada. China makes over 80% of the world's supply, though.
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Well, then explain what happened to the largest solar farm in Ukraine.
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Oil, natural gas, and coal are 18th century fuels. Why conservatives have such a hardon for buying oil from hostile countries is beyond me. Well maybe because if you crossed out Mohamed out of everything and wrote in Jesus their goals would align 100%.
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Conservatives want the U.S. to be self-sufficient with petroleum. They want Europe to not have to depend on petroleum from Russia.
40 years ago leftists were having hissy fits about diamonds from the Union of South Africa. Petroleum is far more important and the Islamist and Russian governments far more dangerous.
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I'm not sure that's quite the argument you think it is.
I'm all for renewables, but... (Score:2)
Wouldn't a more meaningful number be installed renewable+24hr/storage capacity, as in, enough storage for each renewable source to provide a consistent output 24 hours per day? I just don't see how comparing peak renewable output to constant baseload power from more traditional sources is a particularly useful comparison.
Meanwhile... (Score:4, Interesting)
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You mean the bird blenders that are also killing whales and dolphins?
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Cue all the oil shill bots... (Score:2)
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They're already doing the talking point about how gas was expensive under Biden while ignoring the fact that it was due to covid disruptions and not because of fucking with Iran.
Clear cutting forests? (Score:2)
As I understand it "renewable energy" means clear cutting forests and burning trees for energy.
Per unit of energy produced, burning trees is far more polluting that burning natural gas, or even diesel. Then you have the destruction of the forests.
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As I understand it "renewable energy" means clear cutting forests and burning trees for energy.
Per unit of energy produced, burning trees is far more polluting that burning natural gas, or even diesel. Then you have the destruction of the forests.
That's a weird understanding. Are you on a lot of heavy drugs? While burning biomass is one form of renewable energy, it's hardly exclusively what is meant when people say "renewable energy". You also missed the part where you don't clear cut forests. Whatever you're growing, you grow it in a sustainable way. If it's trees, you use sustainable forestry techniques like they're supposed to use in the lumber industry (certainly you should not be cutting down old growth forests). Of course, if you're growing ju
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Global energy sources (Score:2)
Despite the puffery the vast proportion of global energy sources (77%) are fossil fuels, In Australia it is 91%. Oil is the biggest in both cases.
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Incompetent report - you are being misled (Score:2)
Solar has a capacity factor of about 15%, nuclear or coal (when used properly) has about 90%. So 1 GW of nuclear or coal is equivalent to 6 GW of solar.
define "capacity" (Score:2)
Is "capacity" peak power generation capacity in kW? Time average power generation capacity in kW? Expectation value of total annual power generation deliverable in kWh? Minimum over time instantaneous power generation capacity in kW?
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But but but China!
If the math is indeed wrong then perhaps you could offer some corrections?
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Don't forget that Chewbacca, a wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk lives on Endor.