ABU DHABI: Global renewable power capacity expanded by a record 692 gigawatts in 2025, lifting the world’s installed renewable total to 5,149 GW and marking a 15.5% annual increase, according to new data from the International Renewable Energy Agency. Renewables accounted for 85.6% of all new power capacity added last year, and their share of total installed power capacity rose to 49.4% from 46.3% in 2024, bringing renewable sources to nearly half of the world’s installed generation base by the end of the year.
Solar power remained the main engine of growth, with 511 GW added during the year, while wind expanded by 159 GW. Together, the two technologies made up 96.8% of all net renewable additions in 2025, underscoring how strongly new installations continued to be concentrated in those segments. Total installed solar capacity reached 2,392 GW by year-end, while wind capacity rose to 1,291 GW, extending their lead over other renewable sources and reinforcing their role in annual global power sector expansion across developed and emerging markets.
Regional growth remained highly uneven. Asia contributed 513.3 GW, or 74.2% of all new renewable capacity added worldwide in 2025, taking the region’s installed renewable base to 2,891 GW, or 56.1% of the global total. China accounted for 440.1 GW of Asia’s expansion, exceeding the combined additions of all other regions. The figures showed that global renewable growth continued to accelerate, but also remained heavily concentrated in a relatively small number of markets, despite broader gains across multiple regions and technologies during the year.
Regional disparities persist
Africa and the Middle East recorded their fastest annual renewable growth on record, though from much smaller bases than Asia. Africa added 11.3 GW in 2025, a 15.9% increase, driven by gains in Ethiopia, South Africa and Egypt. The Middle East expanded by 12.7 GW, up 28.9%, with Saudi Arabia leading the increase. Even with those strong growth rates, additions in both regions remained far below Asia’s total, underscoring the uneven geographic spread of renewable investment, infrastructure development and project deployment.
Outside Asia, every other region added less than 100 GW during the year, highlighting the narrower spread of large-scale deployment. Hydropower contributed 18.4 GW globally in 2025, bioenergy added 3.4 GW, off-grid renewables rose by 1.7 GW and geothermal increased by 0.3 GW. Those figures showed that while solar and wind continued to dominate capacity growth, the broader renewable mix also expanded, though at a much slower rate than the two technologies that drove most of the year’s increase worldwide.
COP28 benchmark remains challenging
Despite the record buildout, the latest data showed the world is still not on pace to meet the global goal of tripling installed renewable capacity to 11.2 terawatts by 2030, a benchmark tied to the UAE Consensus adopted at the COP28 climate summit in the United Arab Emirates. IRENA has said that meeting that target now requires average annual additions of about 1,122 GW from 2025 onward, equivalent to annual growth of 16.6% through the rest of the decade, above the pace achieved in 2025.
The figures pointed to continued acceleration in renewable construction, but also to a market still defined by concentration in a handful of countries and technologies. With renewables now accounting for nearly half of global installed power capacity, the 2025 data marked another shift in the composition of the world’s electricity system. At the same time, the gap between last year’s additions and the level required for 2030 showed that record expansion alone is not yet enough to meet the agreed global benchmark. – By Content Syndication Services.