Renewables Recap 2025: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
The global renewable energy transition delivered headline-grabbing records in 2025, reinforcing clean power’s growing dominance in the energy mix. Yet beneath the optimism lies a more complex reality: progress is accelerating, but not fast enough or evenly enough to meet global climate and development goals.
The Good: A Record-Breaking Year for Renewables
Renewable energy continued its remarkable ascent, with global capacity additions reaching a record 582 GW in 2024, pushing total installed renewable power capacity to 4,443 GW worldwide. This expansion reflects strong momentum across solar, wind, and other clean technologies, driven by falling costs, supportive policies, and rising energy security concerns.
Investment also surged to unprecedented levels. USD 2.4 trillion was invested in the energy transition in 2024, representing a 20% increase over the average annual investments of 2022 and 2023. Of this, roughly one-third — USD 807 billion — was directed toward renewable energy technologies, underscoring continued investor confidence in clean power.
Perhaps most compelling is the economic case: 91% of newly commissioned renewable power projects were cheaper than any new fossil fuel alternative, reinforcing renewables as not only a climate solution, but the most cost-competitive choice for new generation.
The Bad: Progress Is Still Falling Short
Despite these achievements, current deployment rates remain well below what is needed to stay on track for the global commitment to triple renewable capacity to 11.2 terawatts by 2030. Achieving this goal will require adding 1,122 GW of renewable capacity every year from 2025 onward, demanding annual growth of 16.6% for the rest of the decade.
The gap between ambition and delivery highlights persistent challenges around permitting, grid expansion, financing in emerging markets, and policy consistency. Without faster scaling, the world risks locking in higher emissions and missing critical climate targets.
Closing the Gap: Leadership and Finance Matter
Major economies have a pivotal role to play. G20 countries are expected to account for more than 80% of global renewable capacity by 2030, while the developed economies of the G7 could raise their share to around 20% within this decade.
Raising national targets, mobilising concessional and impact-driven finance, and strengthening international cooperation will be essential. Equally important is project facilitation — ensuring bankable pipelines, risk-mitigation tools, and regulatory clarity to accelerate deployment and enable a just and inclusive energy transition.
The Gamechanger: Digitalisation and AI
Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are emerging as powerful enablers of the energy transition. From demand and price forecasting to smart grid management, flexibility solutions, and predictive maintenance, digital tools can help manage the variability of renewable energy and improve system reliability.
When deployed alongside physical infrastructure, digital solutions can lower electricity costs, enhance energy security, and improve operational performance. As countries modernise and expand their power systems, integrating digital technologies into long-term energy planning will be critical.
The Ugly: Rising Demand and Unequal Access
While renewables are scaling up, global energy demand continues to rise, particularly from data centres supporting AI and digital services. This growth presents both challenges and opportunities, requiring careful coordination between digital innovation, grid expansion, and renewable power deployment to ensure reliable and sustainable supply.
Access to energy remains deeply uneven. Although nearly 92% of the global population now has basic access to electricity, reliable and affordable power for productive uses such as industry and agriculture is still limited in many regions. More than 666 million people remain without electricity, and the current pace of progress is insufficient to achieve universal access by 2030.
Clean cooking remains another critical gap. Around 1.5 billion people in rural areas still rely on polluting fuels, with off-grid solutions such as solar PV, household biogas systems, and electric cooking technologies offering viable pathways to improve health outcomes and quality of life.
Bridging the Divide
Regional disparities persist, with 85% of people without electricity access living in Sub-Saharan Africa, and four in five households lacking access to clean cooking. Countries that successfully attract renewable investment benefit from stronger energy security, industrial growth, job creation, and greater resilience.
Closing the investment and deployment gap between regions is essential to ensure the renewable energy revolution delivers benefits for all — not just a few. Without targeted action, the energy transition risks deepening global inequalities even as it accelerates globally.
