Renewables passed coal for the first time since 1919

Go back far enough and the world's electricity came mostly from falling water. Dams and river turbines, built wherever the geography allowed one.

In 1919, renewables briefly generated more of the world's electricity than coal did. Then coal took the lead.

It held that lead for the next hundred years. Total demand back then was about 300 times smaller than it is today.

In 2025 the line crossed back. Renewables generated 33.8 percent of the world's electricity. Coal generated 33.0 percent.

Renewables here means all of them counted together: hydro, wind, solar, biomass and geothermal. Not solar on its own, and not wind and solar on their own.

Coal also fell below a third of world generation. That had never happened before.

Solar generation rose by 636 terawatt hours in a single year, up 30 percent, its fastest growth in eight years. A record 647 gigawatts of new capacity went up.

That one source covered 75 percent of the year's growth in world electricity demand. Add wind and the two of them covered 99 percent.

Nearly all the extra electricity the world used in 2025 came from sun and wind.

Solar has always had one obvious problem. It stops at night.

Battery costs fell 45 percent during 2025, after falling 20 percent the year before. Around 250 gigawatt hours of storage went in.

That was enough to hold roughly 14 percent of all the new solar generation added that year and give it back later. It is the quiet part of the story, and it is the part that changed what solar can be.

These are the two countries usually named as the reason none of this can happen.

China's electricity from fossil fuels fell by 56 terawatt hours in 2025, down 0.9 percent. It was the first decline since 2015.

India's fell by 52 terawatt hours, down 3.3 percent. It was the first year this century that India's fossil generation went down at all.

Here is the number that carries the most weight, and it looks like the least.

The world's electricity from fossil fuels fell by 38 terawatt hours in 2025. A drop of 0.2 percent. Almost nothing.

What makes it count is the reason. Every previous fall came from a recession, a pandemic or some other one-off. This one came from clean generation growing faster than demand did.

Put the two ends of it together.

In 1919 the world ran a small grid, mostly on falling water, and coal was about to take it over for a century.

In 2025 the world runs a grid 300 times larger, and the same two lines crossed the same way again. Everything else about the world is different.