plate 311 · 2025 data

Solar overtook wind power in 24 countries in ten years

Countries where solar overtook wind in electricity generation, 2015 to 2025, of 62 with wind power both years.

The energy switch
  1. 1. China now uses more electricity per person than the EU
  2. 2. Solar now makes more of Brazil's power than fossil fuels
  3. 3. Rooftop solar now outsizes coal on Australia's main grid
  4. 4. Volcanic heat makes nearly 45% of the power Kenya generates
  5. 5. France swung from power importer to record exporter
  6. 6. Over a quarter of China's new heavy trucks are electric
  7. 7. Nepal imports twice as many electric cars as petrol cars
  8. 8. The US now ships a quarter of the world's LNG
  9. 9. Kazakhstan mines more uranium than Canada and Namibia combined
  10. 10. Indonesia now mines two-thirds of the world's nickel
  11. 11. India had 27 million ACs for 1.3 billion people
  12. 12. Sun and wind now beat fossil fuels in Chile
  13. 13. Two in three rickshaws sold in India are electric
  14. 14. Argentina mined 60% more lithium in just one year
  15. 15. Ethiopia added over a third of Africa's new renewable power
  16. 16. Only 16 countries are building new coal power plants
  17. 17. Egypt's sun and wind now outproduce its Nile dams
  18. 18. The price of lithium fell 86% in three years
  19. 19. Pakistan now gets more power from solar than from coal
  20. 20. Oil now makes less than a third of Saudi power
  21. 21. The Philippines is building more solar than it already runs
  22. 22. Nine in ten Indonesians now cook with clean fuels
  23. 23. Rwanda spread electricity faster than any country since 2014
  24. 24. India's sun and wind now outproduce Germany's
  25. 25. Solar now beats coal in 25 of 81 coal-burning countries
  26. 26. Indonesia climbed from ninth to second among cobalt miners
  27. 27. Fossil fuels fell from all to two-thirds of UAE power
  28. 28. DR Congo tripled its copper mining in ten years
  29. 29. Paraguay now uses most of the power it makes
  30. 30. Nigeria now imports more solar panels than generators
  31. 31. Zimbabwe climbed to fourth among the world's lithium miners
  32. 32. Coal's share of Bangladesh's power jumped from 2% to 22%
  33. 33. Guyana now emits more CO2 per person than Britain
  34. 34. Nepal now sells more electricity than it buys
  35. 35. Emerging economies now take 42% of China's electric car exports
  36. 36. China's car sales to Ethiopia are now mostly electric
  37. 37. Saudi Arabia's battery imports grew 46-fold since 2019
  38. 38. Pakistan became the world's third-biggest buyer of solar panels
  39. 39. Solar beats hydropower in 28 of 131 countries
  40. 40. Viet Nam reached 10% solar in two years, Germany 13
  41. 41. Indonesia became America's biggest solar panel supplier
  42. 42. Solar overtook wind power in 24 countries in ten years
24 of 62

Countries where solar overtook wind between 2015 and 2025, among them India, Mexico, Chile, South Africa and Pakistan; Russia went the other way.

30

Countries where solar made more electricity than wind in 2025, up from 7 in 2015. Pakistan: 36.6 TWh of solar, 3.7 of wind.

1,173 vs 1,128 TWh

China's solar passed its wind in 2025 too; wind still leads in 32 of the 62, among them Brazil, the US and Germany.

Source: Ember, Yearly electricity data (solar and wind generation, TWh), 2025
the numbers & method
Solar overtook wind power in 24 countries in ten years. Source: Ember, Yearly electricity data (solar and wind generation, TWh), 2025.
CountryValue (×)
CHE52.53
HUN18.13
KOR10.32
PAK9.79
JPN8.63
CZE7.32
MKD7.18
CYP5.67
LKA5.47
BGR5.17
PRI4.14
LVA3.73
THA2.81
VNM2.31
ITA2.08
PHL2.05
TUN1.93
CHL1.92
IRN1.88
IND1.87
ZAF1.73
DOM1.60
AUS1.47
TWN1.31
AUT1.24
MEX1.24
ESP1.07
CHN1.04
EST1.02
LUX1.02
EGY0.94
GRC0.94
TUR0.94
PER0.87
NLD0.85
USA0.84
ROU0.83
POL0.82
BEL0.78
BRA0.76
RUS0.74
DEU0.68
PRT0.65
FRA0.63
HRV0.42
MNG0.42
KAZ0.41
LTU0.41
MAR0.38
ARG0.28
DNK0.22
GBR0.22
ECU0.20
CAN0.17
URY0.13
IRL0.12
NZL0.12
SWE0.11
CRI0.07
ETH0.04
FIN0.04
NOR0.04

Claim types Fact

Ember yearly electricity data (solar: version 0dbd52e7d6; wind: version 3e6cabce31), electricity generation from solar and from wind, TWh, read from Ember via the progrss vault (source ember; GUIDELINES §4.11). Set, fixed before counting: the 62 countries and territories with at least 0.1 TWh of wind generation in both 2015 and 2025 and a solar value both years in Ember's data (Ember has 2025 values for about 94 countries, so the set is also limited by 2025 coverage). A descriptive count of two series (progrss calculation): it claims no link between them. Solar ahead in 2015: Czechia, Italy, Japan, Korea, Switzerland, Thailand, Russia (7). In 2025: 30; 24 switched (Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Chile, China, Cyprus, Dominican Republic, Estonia, Hungary, India, Iran, Latvia, Luxembourg, Mexico, North Macedonia, Pakistan, Philippines, Puerto Rico, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Tunisia, Viet Nam) and Russia switched back (2.86 vs 3.89 TWh). Some switchers have small systems (Luxembourg, Tunisia, Latvia, Puerto Rico, Estonia and Cyprus under 1.5 TWh of solar) and two are near ties (Estonia 1.16 vs 1.14, Luxembourg 0.49 vs 0.48 TWh). Pakistan 2015: 0.38 solar vs 0.79 wind; 2025: 36.60 vs 3.74. India: 7.09 vs 32.74 → 194.60 vs 104.00. Mexico: 0.20 vs 8.95 → 27.14 vs 21.84. Ember 2025 values are the latest Ember edition and may be revised. Ember data: CC BY 4.0. Yellow on the map: the 24 that switched; the 6 already ahead in 2015 are grey. See also plates 284 (solar vs hydropower) and 174 (solar vs coal).

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what connects to this

004 going electric Africa's solar imports more than doubled since early 2024 005 power shift China makes more electricity than the US and EU combined 193 new routes Pakistan rose to first place in Chinese energy finance