The world is rewiring itself. Clean energy is winning on economics alone

A seismic shift in how the world generates power

The economics of clean energy have fundamentally changed. What was once a subsidy-dependent niche is now the cheapest form of new electricity generation in most of the world.

The clean energy revolution is no longer a future scenario—it is the present reality of global power markets. In 2025, the world added over 700 gigawatts of renewable capacity, more than the total installed power capacity of the European Union. Solar photovoltaics alone accounted for roughly three-quarters of that figure, a technology whose costs have fallen by around 90% since 2010.

This transformation is being driven by a convergence of forces: the relentless decline in technology costs, ambitious government targets, growing corporate procurement, and a widespread recognition that energy security and decarbonisation are not competing objectives but complementary ones. The International Energy Agency projects that renewables will overtake coal as the world's largest source of electricity generation before 2027.

Solar: the undisputed champion

Solar energy has become the most disruptive force in global electricity markets. Global installed solar capacity surpassed 2 terawatts in 2025, a threshold reached faster than any energy technology in history. China alone installed more solar panels in 2024 than the United States had in its entire history. The manufacturing scale, centred heavily in China, continues to push module prices to new lows, making solar competitive even in northern latitudes once considered unsuitable.

The implications extend well beyond the power sector. Cheap solar electricity is beginning to reshape industrial processes, from green hydrogen production to direct electrification of heat. In sunbelt countries across the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia, solar offers a path to energy abundance that bypasses the fossil fuel infrastructure that industrialised nations built over decades.

Wind: scaling new heights

Wind power, both onshore and offshore, remains the second pillar of the clean energy transition. Global wind capacity exceeded 1.1 terawatts in 2025. Onshore wind continues to expand rapidly across the Americas, Europe, and parts of Asia, while offshore wind is entering a new phase of growth. Turbines with capacities exceeding 15 megawatts are now being deployed in the North Sea and along the coasts of East Asia, with a single rotation capable of powering a home for two days.

Storage: the missing piece falls into place

The intermittency of solar and wind has long been cited as their Achilles heel. But energy storage is rapidly closing the gap. Lithium-ion battery costs have fallen by more than 95% since 2010, and global battery storage deployments more than doubled year-on-year in 2024. Grid-scale batteries are now routinely paired with solar farms, enabling solar to compete with dispatchable fossil fuel plants.

Meanwhile, longer-duration storage technologies—including iron-air batteries, compressed air, and green hydrogen—are advancing from pilot stage to commercial deployment. These promise to address the multi-day and seasonal storage challenges that lithium-ion alone cannot solve, removing one of the last structural barriers to very high renewable penetration.

The grid: backbone of the transition

Perhaps the greatest bottleneck is not generation but transmission. The world needs to build or upgrade millions of kilometres of power lines to connect remote wind and solar resources to demand centres. The IEA estimates that grid investment must roughly double to $800 billion per year by 2030. In many countries, projects that have received permits wait years for a grid connection—a bureaucratic and physical infrastructure challenge that threatens to slow the pace of deployment.