Good News: Clean Energy Makes a Difference!

Welcome to the first Good News Blog series, where every month I pick one thing that's genuinely getting better and check the numbers on it myself. I look for measurable trends with primary sources. Some months we might talk about health. Some months maybe safety or energy or clean water. This month it's electricity. If you have a good news topic you'd like me to write about, drop a line at renee@arbitragetrade.com. Here we go!

The year coal quietly lost its crown

In 2025, renewable energy overtook coal as the largest single source of electricity on the planet. Solar, wind, hydropower and other renewables together supplied more than a third of the world's electricity for the first time in the modern power system. Coal's share fell below a third, also for the first time in history. Coal has been the backbone of electricity since electricity was a thing. Losing the top spot is the kind of milestone that gets one news cycle and then disappears, so I want to marinate in it a little longer, if you don't mind.

The part that surprised me most

Fossil-fuel generation fell in both China and India in the same year. That had not happened once this century. In China, it dropped by 56 terawatt-hours. That's about as much electricity as 5.3 million American homes use in a year, or a little over one percent of total US consumption.

Set against China's own enormous grid, that decline is small. But these are the first and third largest coal-burning power sectors on earth, and the direction is what matters here. China's fossil generation had risen every year since 2015. When people argue that clean energy progress in the US is pointless because of what's happening overseas, this is the number that complicates the argument. The reason is straightforward: China added enough clean power, mostly solar, that low-carbon generation grew faster than demand did. Once that crossover happens, fossil generation has nowhere to go but down. It's arithmetic more than idealism.

Solar is doing something math people call compounding

The world's installed solar fleet passed 3 terawatts in early 2026. It tripled in four years. Solar generation has been roughly doubling every three years, and it's up more than tenfold since 2015. Doubling is deceptively boring until you run it forward. A thing that doubles every three years is eight times bigger in a decade. Solar passed wind globally in 2025 and is closing in on nuclear. In 2025 alone it accounted for 77% of all new renewable capacity added worldwide.

Closer to home

If you live in Texas like I do, you're standing in the middle of this. The EIA (Energy Information Administration) projected 63 gigawatts of new utility-scale generating capacity for the US grid in 2025, nearly 30 percent more than 2024, which was itself the biggest year since 2002. Solar and battery storage accounted for 81%. Texas alone was slated for 11.6 gigawatts of new solar, more than any other state by a wide margin. Storage is the underrated half of that sentence. US battery capacity grew 59 percent over a twelve-month stretch ending in late 2025, with nearly 14 gigawatts added. Batteries are what turn solar from a midday resource into an all-day one, and they've been scaling faster than almost anyone forecast.

What I'm not saying

Nothing here means the problem is solved. Global emissions are still enormous, and the power sector is only part of the picture. Analysts also expect global solar installations to dip in 2026 for the first time in two decades, mostly because of a policy shift in China. Growth curves have bad years.

But let's take the wins when we see them. And this is a win!

See you next month for more Good News!