Countries around the world added 585 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity in 2025, accounting for 92.5% of all power growth globally, a report out this week from the International Renewable Energy Agency says. That figure equated to an annual growth rate of a record high 15.1%, the agency said.
Despite the record increase, renewable energy growth is still not moving fast enough to satisfy the global goal to triple renewable capacity to 11.2 terawatts by 2030. The energy agency said to achieve that goal renewable capacity will need to grow at least 16.6% each year until then.
“The continuous growth of renewables we witness each year is evidence that renewables are economically viable and readily deployable,” said IRENA Director-General Francesco La Camera in a press release. “Each year they keep breaking their own expansion records, but we also face the same challenges of great regional disparities and the ticking clock as the 2030 deadline is imminent.”
The regional disparities reflect that fact that most of the worldwide growth in renewables is coming from Asia, and China in particular. The IRENA data show China accounted for almost 64% of the global added capacity while Central America and the Caribbean contributed just 3.2%. Altogether the G-20 countries, which includes China and the U.S., accounted for 90% of the new capacity.
“Renewable energy is powering down the fossil fuel age. Record-breaking growth is creating jobs, lowering energy bills and cleaning our air. Renewables renew economies,” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres told IRENA. “But the shift to clean energy must be faster and fairer – with all countries given the chance to fully benefit from cheap, clean renewable power.”
Solar and wind energy continued to expand the most, jointly accounting for 96.6% of all net renewable additions in 2024. Over three-quarters of the capacity expansion was in solar energy which increased by 32.2%, reaching 1,865 gigawatts, followed by wind energy which grew by 11.1%.
Among the other highlights in the report:
- Solar: Solar photovoltaics increased by 451.9 GW last year. China alone added 278 GW to the total expansion, followed by India (24.5 GW).
- Hydropower (excluding pumped storage hydropower): Capacity reached 1,283 GW, demonstrating a notable rebound from 2023, driven by China. Ethiopia, Indonesia, Nepal Pakistan, Tanzania and Viet Nam added more than 0.5 GW each.
- Wind: Wind energy expansion declined slightly, to a total of 1,133 GW capacity by the end of 2024. Expansion was once again dominated by China and the United States.
- Bioenergy: Expansion rebounded in 2024, with an increase of 4.6 GW of capacity compared to an increase of 3.0 GW in 2023. The growth was driven by China and France with 1.3 GW of additions each.
- Geothermal: Geothermal energy increased by 0.4 GW overall, led by New Zealand, followed by Indonesia, Türkiye, and the US.
- Off-grid electricity (excluding Eurasia, Europe and North America): capacity expansion nearly tripled, growing by 1.7 GW to reach 14.3 GW. Growth was dominated by off-grid solar energy which reached 6.3 GW by 2024.
Read the full Renewable Capacity Statistics 2025 here.
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