{"id":158917,"date":"2025-11-29T01:09:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-29T01:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/158917\/"},"modified":"2025-11-29T01:09:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-29T01:09:09","slug":"chart-solar-and-wind-are-meeting-and-exceeding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/158917\/","title":{"rendered":"Chart: Solar and wind are meeting \u2014 and exceeding \u2014\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p dir=\"ltr\">Between January and September, the two clean-energy sources grew fast enough to more than offset all new demand worldwide, <a href=\"https:\/\/ember-energy.org\/latest-insights\/q3-global-power-report-no-fossil-fuel-growth-expected-in-2025\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">according to data<\/a> from energy research firm\u00a0Ember.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Power demand rose by 603\u00a0terawatt-hours compared to that same time period last year. Solar met nearly all that new demand on its own, increasing by 498 TWh. Wind generation, meanwhile, climbed by 137\u00a0TWh.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">What happens when clean energy not only meets but exceeds new power demand? We start to burn less fossil fuels. At least a\u00a0little less: Through Q3, fossil-fuel generation dropped by 17 TWh, compared to the first three quarters of 2024. This trend is expected to continue through the end of the year. Ember forecasts that fossil-fuel generation will have experienced no notable growth in 2025 \u2014 something that hasn\u2019t happened since the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">It\u2019s unclear whether this flatlining marks the beginning of the end for fossil-fueled electricity or whether it\u2019s just a\u00a0pause before another surge in dirty power. The answer will more or less be determined by what grows faster: electricity demand or renewable energy.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Common consensus is that the world\u2019s appetite for electricity will expand rapidly in the coming years. The planet is warming and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.canarymedia.com\/articles\/clean-energy\/renewables-emissions-power-demand\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">driving increased use of air conditioning<\/a>. AI developers are building massive <a href=\"https:\/\/www.canarymedia.com\/articles\/data-centers\/data-center-power-forecasts-climb-to-unreachable-heights\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">power-hungry data centers<\/a>. Cars, homes, and factories are being electrified. That all adds up: The International Energy Agency <a href=\"https:\/\/iea.blob.core.windows.net\/assets\/0a7a40a4-5dcb-4d6e-a7ad-76a1c90ec8eb\/WorldEnergyOutlook2025.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">expects<\/a> power demand to rise by a\u00a0staggering 40% over the next decade.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Meanwhile, it\u2019s almost not worth considering long-term forecasts about the growth of clean energy, given how inaccurate they\u2019ve been in the past. Analysts have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.canarymedia.com\/articles\/solar\/chart-solar-power-keeps-beating-expectations\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">consistently underestimated<\/a> solar, in particular.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">For the global power sector to truly decarbonize, carbon-free energy needs to not only keep pace with electricity demand but far outrun it. Let\u2019s hope solar continues to overperform.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Between January and September, the two clean-energy sources grew fast enough to more than offset all new demand&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":158918,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[273,111,139,69,147],"class_list":{"0":"post-158917","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}