Dave Jones

Global Electricity Mid-Year Insights 2025 | Ember Solar and wind outpaced demand growth in the first half of 2025, as renewables overtook coal’s share in the global electricity mix.

Do check out our "Global Electricity Mid-Year Insights 2025" out today..
ember-energy.org/latest-insig...

In the EU, a cold, dry and unwindy Q1 led to low renewables generation, which would be expected to bounce back.

The summer in India was less severe than in 2024, which (alongside weaker industrial growth) saw electricity demand growing slowly...

In India, coal generation FELL unexpectedly... but that was partly due to low demand growth caused by milder weather...

India, meanwhile had a bumper solar and wind 6 months...

That's 2 quarters in row of falling gas generation... but at the expense of rising coal generation...

In the US, it's a very different picture... there is little wind growth, and solar growth is far from covering fast-rising electricity demand.

Also higher gas prices meant switching to more dirtier coal generation.

Is China's coal falling structurally? It's hard to call that - but it's definitely at a plateau...

In China, coal fell because of the extraordinary growth in solar - but also in wind...

Enough to push coal use DOWN in China AND India...

And solar capacity new-build in 2025 is beating all records AGAIN:

Solar in some countries is now over a QUARTER of total electricity supply in the first half of the year...

Because SOLAR AND WIND more-than met the rise in global electricity demand in the first half of this year...

NEW: GLOBAL RENEWABLES OVERTAKES COAL

How the heck did that happen so quickly?!...🧵

This dataset is a treasure trove of insights...

LINK: ember-energy.org/data/china-c...

bsky.app/profile/did:...

China cleantech is shaping Africa's energy🌍

In August, for the first time, Africa imported more $ of EV's from China than it did solar panels🚗🚗🚗

It’s a race .. the old world vs the new, the dirty tech vs the clean, the current superpower vs the next .. no prizes for guessing who is winning the race

Source: Bloomberg

In the era-defining US fossil fuels v China clean tech export race there's only one winner, reports @Bloomberg

www.bloomberg.com/ne...

There's a growing desire for a product. It happens to be lower carbon. China is meeting it, regardless of where the demand comes from.

Gift link: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

China Cleantech Exports Data Explorer | Ember A tool to uncover insights from the latest clean technology export data from China, including solar PV, batteries and electric vehicles. Explore by electrotech type, country or region.

We hope this new Ember dataset is useful for your work.

Here is where to find it:
ember-energy.org/data/china-c...

And of course the biggest meta story of them all, which
@akshatrathi.bsky.social reported on today:

Chinese clean tech exports exceed US fossil fuel exports..

bloomberg.com/news/article...

Belgium is one of the world's biggest importers of Chinese EV's at the moment, as its company car tax perks make it generous to shift to EV's...

India is now importing more $ m of batteries than solar..

..in part because it's ramping up its solar manufacturing, and also now installing more grid batteries.

There's so many interesting stories buried in the data... E.g....

The data is updated monthly - and we'll try to update it within 3 working days of China's GACC publishing the data. That means, expect September data around 21st of October..

The fastest rising category is EV exports - and over half of the growth in China’s EV exports this year came from emerging countries.

Chinese cleantech exports are increasingly more of a story for emerging countries than developed countries.

Solar exports are half their peak - but because prices have fallen. Actually in August, they exported a record amount of solar capacity...

(Although EV prices and batteries have also collapsed in price in the last 3 years, giving far more tech for the money)

The latest data is from August.

Exports hit a monthly record of $20 billion.

And for the first time, both batteries and EV exports are now DOUBLE that of solar panels.

This dataset is 100% based on Chinese Customs Data (GACC).

We spent a lot of time finding all the right codes, to aggregate into key cleantech categories.

And our free data download also breaks it into subcategory:

NEW DATASET: China cleantech exports to EVERY COUNTRY in the world, updated monthly.

Today, understanding tradeflows of fossil fuels and cleantech is sooo important for policy-makers, and this dataset is treasure trove...

🧵