The Garrulous Jay – Energising

This week the global energy think-tank, Ember, published its Global Electricity Mid-Year Insights 2025 report. The headlines gave me pause for thought and cause for optimism.

In the first half of 2025 Ember reports that for the first time the increase in solar and wind power outpaced the global growth in electricity demand, with solar alone meeting 83% of the rise.

As a result, electricity from renewables overtook coal in the overall generation mix.

Much of this increase was driven by the continued momentum in the growth of solar generation, which grew by 31% in the first half of 2025, its fastest absolute growth on record. This was primarily attributable to capacity additions.

Leading the pack was China, which accounted for 55% of global solar generation growth. Four years ago, China derived around four percent of its electricity from solar, whereas today this figure stands at over 11%.

By comparison, the growth in solar in the US over the same period has been from a similar level to China, up to under 9%. And that despite markedly slower overall economic growth.

Solar generation grew 14% in the US year-on-year in the first six months of 2025, but fossil generation also increased as renewables failed to keep pace with higher demand. By comparison fossil fuel generation fell in China in the period under review.

What lessons can we draw from Ember’s report?

First, this is good news… Much of what we hear about global climate change and our addiction to fossil fuels can give cause for despondency: a sense of helplessness that however hard we try the challenge of getting to ‘net zero’ is beyond our reach.

Ember’s report suggests otherwise, with the momentum in solar generation being particularly striking.

It also highlights a potential the gap between perception and reality. China has been vilified in the past for the breakneck pace at which it has opened new coal mines. The Ember report suggests not only that it is leading the world in solar generation growth, but that it is also weaning itself off fossil fuels.

That reality will potentially have profound long-term economic and geopolitical implications globally that investors should consider carefully. Renewables confer both self-sufficiency and sustainability of electricity supply: the lifeblood of any economy. For solar the main input source rises in the east and sets in the west every day. While there might be capacity constraints on solar equipment in the future, the sun isn’t going to ‘run out’ any time soon.

Even if the supply of fossil fuels was infinite, not every country has them, and their extraction and transportation is far from cheap. The countries that are driving the change in their electricity supply by moving further and faster into renewables, rather than sustaining their growth on coal, oil and gas, are therefore placing themselves at a significant long-term economic and political advantage.

These are long-term changes that will play out over decades rather than years. But they are nevertheless trends that those investing over a similar time horizon should at the very least keep at the back of their minds.