PVTIME – Global energy think tank Ember has published its 2025 global PV industry statistics, highlighting the unprecedented growth of renewable energy deployment worldwide. Key data shows that the global capacity of newly installed solar and wind energy reached a record 814GW in 2025, marking a 17% year-on-year increase and emphasising the accelerating transition to clean energy.
Solar energy was the main driver of this growth, accounting for 647GW of new installations in 2025, an 11% increase on the 582GW recorded in 2024. This expansion pushed global cumulative PV capacity to around 2,900GW by the end of 2025. Ember’s data for the first half of the year shows 380GW of PV installations, with a further 267GW of projects connected to the grid in the second half.
Wind power also experienced significant growth, with new installations surging by 47% year-on-year, rising from 113GW in 2024 to 167GW in 2025. This increase brought the total global wind capacity to around 1,300GW. Ember’s data analysts have noted that, for every 1GW of new wind capacity added, nearly 4GW of solar capacity was installed, which reinforces the dominant role of PV in the global power system.
Regionally, China maintained its leading position, installing 378GW of new renewables, followed by the EU with 65GW and the US with 45GW. Ember data analyst Leonard Heberer commented that the scale and speed of solar expansion are unparalleled in the power sector, with wind and solar technologies increasingly becoming the backbone of the global electricity supply.
The combined annual power generation from the new wind and solar capacity installed in 2025 is estimated at 1,046TWh. This is equivalent to more than one-seventh of global natural gas power generation, and 1.8 times Qatar’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. At current market prices, this equates to around 138 billion US dollars in saved natural gas import costs.
The report also addresses the impact of geopolitics on energy security. Ember notes that, since the outbreak of the US-Israel-Iran war, global wind and solar generation has avoided 330TWh of gas-fired power demand, saving over 40 billion US dollars in potential natural gas costs. Ember energy strategist Kingsmill Bond emphasised that renewable energy provides a cost-effective and rapidly deployable solution to achieving energy security that is free from geopolitical constraints.
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