Clean energy powered 40% of global electricity in 2024, report finds

The world used clean power sources to meet more than 40% of its electricity demand last year for the first time since the 1940s, figures show.

A report by the energy thinktank Ember said the milestone was powered by a boom in solar power capacity, which has doubled in the last three years.

The report found that solar farms had been the world’s fastest-growing source of energy for the last 20 consecutive years.

Phil MacDonald, Ember’s managing director, said: “Solar power has become the engine of the global energy transition. Paired with battery storage, solar is set to be an unstoppable force. As the fastest-growing and largest source of new electricity, it is critical in meeting the world’s ever-increasing demand for electricity.”

Overall, solar power remains a relatively small part of the global energy system. It made up almost 7% of the world’s electricity last year, according to Ember, while wind power made up just over 8% of the global power system.

The fast-growing technologies remain dwarfed by hydro power, which has remained relatively steady in recent years, and made up 14% of the world’s electricity in 2024.

Hydro power is one of the modern world’s oldest renewable energy technologies, and made up a large proportion of global electricity in the 1940s – when the power system was about 50 times smaller than it is today.

The continuing growth of solar means clean power – including nuclear and bioenergy – is on track to expand faster than the world’s overall electricity demand, according to Ember. This should mean fossil fuels beginning to be squeezed out of the global power system.

Ember had previously predicted that 2023 would be the year in which emissions from electricity reached a peak, after a plateau in the first half of the year.

Climate experts hoped then that emissions would begin to fall, but a series of heatwaves across the globe ignited a surge in demand for electricity to power air conditioning and refrigeration systems, which caused fuel electricity to grow by 1.4% that year.

The report, which accounted for 93% of the global electricity market across 88 countries, found that the surge in demand pushed emissions from the global power sector up by 1.6% to an all-time high last year.

MacDonald said heatwaves were unlikely to ignite a similar demand surge in the year ahead – but the increasing use of electricity to power artificial intelligence, datacentres, electric vehicles and heat pumps was expected to play a bigger role in the world’s appetite for electricity.

Combined, these technologies accounted for a 0.7% increase in global electricity demand in 2024, double what they contributed five years ago, the report found.

“The world is watching how technologies like AI and EVs will drive electricity demand,” MacDonald said. “It’s clear that booming solar and wind are comfortably set to deliver, and those expecting fossil fuel generation to keep rising will be disappointed.”