Nicolas Fulghum

In the first five months of 2025, coal power has fallen in China compared to 2024. Solar power is up 120 TWh, meeting 86% of the increase in electricity demand ☀️⚡️ Wind also up substantially

NEW | Solar power was the EU’s biggest power source in June 2025 ☀️ For the first time, solar ranked first among all power sources, producing 22.1% of the EU’s power ahead of nuclear at 21.8%. Coal power fell to a record low 6.1% in sixth place.

NEW | Solar is now California’s #1 electricity source ☀️ Over the past 12 months (to April), solar generated more electricity than any other source in California — surpassing gas for the first time in history. Rapid solar + battery deployment will keep this trend going 🔋⚡️

Among the doom and gloom, here's a hopeful development: China's industry is switching from fossil fuels to electricity. The future energy system runs on electricity.

European car manufacturers dragging their feet on EVs is the path to losing the industry for good. China, the world's largest vehicle market, is simply moving along regardless. EVs are already over 50% of new registrations. The share of EV trucks already matches that of cars in Europe.

Gas power costs are reaching energy crisis levels again in the UK, which will inevitably push bills up for consumers. The fortunes of the British economy are still tied to the price of a single fossil fuel. When bills go up, remember that this is the reason why.

The Conservatives' plan for getting power prices down in the UK is based on cheap-to-build and cheap-to-run gas plants. In the real world, global gas markets are currently blessing the UK with the highest gas power costs since late 2022 (£115/MWh in fuel costs).

I'm personally not concerned about Germany being a net importer of electricity (it's just a sensible thing to engage in the European market), but for those who are... Germany was a net exporter of electricity in August (trade flows in purple) for the first time since 2022.

Africa's solar boom is progressing much faster than official statistics are capturing. Ember estimates that solar deployment in 2025 and 2026 is more than double what other statistics suggest. 2026 could hit 17 GW of solar deployment.

The clean power build out in China is at a different level. Shandong's annual wind and solar generation has grown by 118 TWh in the last five years (47 in 2020, 165 in 2025). That's more than Bangladesh's entire electricity demand (118 TWh in 2025).

We can finally share our newest dataset and tool: Chinese provincial electricity data. Five Chinese provinces would make it into the top ten generators of wind and solar power globally, if they were countries. With this new tool we're giving a look into some of the largest power systems on earth.

US solar generation has grown by an order of magnitude in the last decade: July 2026: 53.3 TWh July 2016: 5.9 TWh And growth is still strong...July 2026 was 23% higher than July 2025 and solar is up 20% across the first seven months of 2026.

July made it three months in a row where solar was the single largest source of electricity in the EU 🇪🇺 May: 23.5% June: 25.0% July: 24.9% All fossil fuels (coal, gas, oil etc.) combined were just narrowly higher in July at 25.4%.