Solar passed coal on installed capacity in 2025
The world ended 2025 with more solar generating capacity installed than coal capacity, for the first time in the 26 years Ember’s annual data covers. Ember’s annual statistics for 2025 put world solar capacity at 2,391 GW against 2,242 GW of coal. Solar also passed gas, which stood at 2,088 GW. Measured by the size of the fleet, solar is now the largest single source of electricity supply in the world.
That is a milestone about hardware, not about electricity. Coal plants still produced almost four times as much power in 2025 as solar panels did.
What the world has installed
Installed capacity by fuel, 2025 (Ember, annual):
| Fuel | Capacity (GW) |
|---|---|
| Solar | 2,391 |
| Coal | 2,242 |
| Gas | 2,088 |
| Hydro | 1,296 |
| Wind | 1,291 |
| Nuclear | 407 |
| Other fossil | 325 |
| Bioenergy | 131 |
| Other renewables | 24 |
Capacity is not the same as electricity
A gigawatt of solar and a gigawatt of coal are not interchangeable. Capacity measures how much a plant can produce at full output. Generation measures what it actually produced over the year.
In 2025 the world’s solar fleet generated 2,795 TWh, or 8.8 per cent of all electricity. The coal fleet generated 10,492 TWh, or 33.1 per cent. Dividing Ember’s generation figure by its capacity figure for the same year, each gigawatt of solar delivered about 1.17 TWh, each gigawatt of wind about 2.09 TWh, each gigawatt of coal about 4.68 TWh and each gigawatt of nuclear about 6.90 TWh.
The reason is simple. Panels produce nothing at night, less in winter and less under cloud. A coal or nuclear plant can be asked to run whenever it is available. So a solar fleet has to be several times larger than a coal fleet to deliver the same number of kilowatt hours.
How quickly the gap closed
Ten years ago the comparison was not close. In 2015 the world had 226 GW of solar and 1,916 GW of coal, a ratio of roughly one to eight. By 2020 it was 721 GW against 2,074 GW. By 2024 solar had reached 1,880 GW and coal 2,168 GW, still 288 GW behind.
The crossover happened in a single year. Between 2024 and 2025 the world added 511 GW of solar and 74 GW of coal. Solar capacity has now roughly doubled every three years for a decade, while the coal fleet has grown by about 17 per cent since 2015.
Solar also overtook wind
2025 was the year solar passed wind on output as well. Solar generated 2,795 TWh and wind 2,701 TWh. In 2024 wind was clearly ahead, at 2,503 TWh against 2,155 TWh for solar. Nuclear remains marginally in front of both, at 2,807 TWh in 2025, so solar finished the year as the world’s fifth largest source of electricity by output and its largest by installed capacity.
Where the panels are
The crossover is mostly a Chinese story. China alone reported 1,202 GW of solar capacity in 2025, just over half the world total, and added 315 GW of it in that single year. China’s solar fleet is now within 41 GW of its coal fleet, which stood at 1,243 GW.
Two other countries have already passed their own crossover. The United States reported 212 GW of solar against 189 GW of coal in 2025. Germany reported 106 GW of solar against 32 GW of coal. India, the third largest solar owner at 136 GW, still has 251 GW of coal.
What to watch next
Coal generation fell in 2025, by 54 TWh, the first annual fall since 2020. It was a small fall against a fleet producing more than ten thousand terawatt hours, and world electricity demand grew by 827 TWh over the same year, so it does not yet show coal in retreat. What it does show is that new solar was large enough in 2025 to cover a good share of demand growth on its own.
You can follow both fleets on the solar and coal pages, compare countries at /countries/, or read how the figures are put together on the methodology page.
How we calculated this
All figures come from Ember’s annual dataset, as loaded into this site’s export on 15 September 2026.
- Capacity figures:
sections.annual.capacity_gwby fuel, for the years 2015, 2020, 2024 and 2025, fromregions/world.jsonfor world totals and fromcountries/<id>.jsonfor China, the United States, Germany and India. - Generation figures:
sections.annual.generation_twhandsections.annual.share_pct, same years and files. - Terawatt hours per gigawatt: the year’s
generation_twhfor a fuel divided by the same year’scapacity_gwfor that fuel. Ember reports capacity for the year rather than an average over it, so treat these as approximate. - The 2025 capacity additions are the difference between the 2025 and 2024 values of
capacity_gw.
Ember statistics are annual. They describe a completed calendar year, not conditions at any moment now. Full licence details are on the sources page.