Renewable energy has passed coal as the world’s largest source of electricity. The finding comes from think tank Ember’s Global Electricity Review 2026, published around Earth Day in April.

Renewables reached 33.8 percent of global electricity in 2025, or 10,730 terawatt-hours. Coal stood at 33.0 percent, or 10,476 terawatt-hours. It is the first time coal has fallen below renewables since 1919.

Record solar growth drove the shift. Solar added 636 terawatt-hours in 2025, up 30 percent from the year before. It met 75 percent of global electricity demand growth. Wind added 205 terawatt-hours. Together they met 99 percent of new demand.

Fossil-fuel power fell 0.2 percent in 2025. According to Carbon Brief, it was the first decline driven by a structural clean-energy shift, not an economic crisis.

“We are seeing the first signs of a crucial turning point,” Ember analyst Malgorzata Wiatros-Motyka said in the group’s analysis. The April report’s numbers are recirculating this week as fresh evidence that the energy transition is speeding up.