A new report indicates a historic surge in global renewable energy installations, suggesting a strong possibility that the world’s renewable energy output could easily triple by 2030. However, the lack of ambitious targets from governments is casting a shadow of uncertainty over maintaining this momentum.
The latest analysis released by the energy think tank Ember reveals that the world is on track for another year of record renewable energy installations in 2025. This momentum is the key to potentially meeting the global goal of tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030.
Rapid Growth, Lagging Targets:
Despite the rapid increase in installations, the official 2030 renewable energy targets set by governments worldwide are only aimed at doubling capacity, not tripling it. Ember warns that these unambitious goals are creating uncertainty about whether the current high pace can be sustained towards the tripling objective.
Ember’s new analysis, based on monthly solar and wind data up to September, confirms that 2025 is set to be another record-breaking year, particularly for solar power, with China’s contribution being the most significant.
Projected Growth in 2025:
- The total renewable capacity is expected to increase by 793 Gigawatts (GW) in 2025, an 11% increase from the 2024 output of 717 GW.
- Solar capacity is projected to increase by 9% while wind power capacity is expected to grow by 21%.
- China alone is projected to account for 66% of the global solar capacity and 69% of the wind capacity increase in 2025.
The report notes that to achieve the tripling target globally, capacity needed to increase by an average of 21% annually from 2023 to 2030. Since the average increase from 2023 to 2025 has been 29%, the required annual growth rate from 2026 to 2029 has now dropped to just 12%—making the 2030 tripling goal highly achievable with sustained effort.
