Renewables Surpass Global Energy Demand Growth for the First Time — What It Means for the Future of Power

Nov 3

In October 2025, Ember, a leading energy think tank, released a landmark report confirming that renewables met—and exceeded—the global rise in energy demand for the first time in history. The data, drawn from 88 countries representing 93% of global demand, signals a structural turning point in the world’s energy mix.

For decades, every surge in global consumption—driven by industrialization, population growth, or digital infrastructure—meant a corresponding increase in fossil fuel use. This time, however, solar and wind not only kept up with the surge but overtook coal as a share of generation for the first time on record.

As Ember Senior Electricity Analyst Malgorzata Wiatros-Motyka told Tech Brew, “If you meet new demand with clean sources, you stop adding—and maybe you start cutting down—emissions.”

Panoramic view of solar panels, wind turbines, and advanced energy storage units under sunrise — representing renewables meeting global energy demand for the first time.

A Turning Point Powered by Policy and Scale

The report attributes much of this shift to China’s unprecedented solar expansion, accounting for 55% of the world’s new solar generation. Strategic government policy, large-scale manufacturing, and aggressive price reductions have positioned China as both a domestic and export powerhouse for renewable technology.

By contrast, the United States presents a more complex picture. Policy reversals following the phasing out of subsidies from the Inflation Reduction Act have slowed renewable adoption, leading to increased coal generation and rising emissions in certain regions. As Wiatros-Motyka notes, “It takes time to have the right policy, to plan for it, to integrate sources.”

The lesson is clear: energy transition is as much a matter of governance as technology. Countries that maintain consistent, long-term renewable strategies are now reaping measurable environmental and economic benefits.

What This Means for Energy Storage Innovators

From PWRJoule’s perspective, this global inflection point doesn’t just validate renewable generation—it highlights the next frontier: scalable energy storage. Meeting demand with renewables is an achievement; maintaining reliability while balancing intermittency is the real challenge ahead.

As global electrification accelerates through data centers, transportation, and smart infrastructure, the need for high-density, resilient storage systems grows exponentially. PWRJoule’s magnetic flow battery technology is built to complement this reality—bridging renewable intermittency and industrial uptime.

If renewables are the new baseline, energy storage becomes the new grid backbone.

Editor’s Commentary — A Reason for Optimism

At PWRJoule, we view Ember’s findings as both validation and invitation: validation that the clean energy transition is accelerating, and an invitation to innovate beyond generation into the architecture of distributed energy resilience.

This milestone proves that a renewable-first grid is achievable. The next step is ensuring that clean power is available anytime, anywhere—a goal made possible only through intelligent storage networks, local microgrids, and continued collaboration between policy, science, and private innovation.

As Wiatros-Motyka put it best: “We have lots of news now of doom and gloom. This is something to celebrate.”

And at PWRJoule, we agree—it’s not just something to celebrate. It’s something to build upon.